


Let's Go to the Mall!

by Willaphyx



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Denial of Feelings, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Mall AU, who doesn't love a good dose of high school angst am i right
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 22:50:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 21,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3706697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willaphyx/pseuds/Willaphyx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke Griffin was looking forward to a summer of working at her favorite art store in the local mall.  That is until she found out who works at the bookstore across the hall: Bellamy Blake, who quickly becomes Clarke's least favorite person.  But it would seem like Bellamy doesn't quite feel the same.  With the whole summer ahead of them, who knows what could happen?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Clarke Griffin loved her job.  Really, she did.

Two months ago when her favorite art supply store in the local mall had posted job offerings for the summer she’d been one of the first to hand in an application.  She’d landed the job two days later.

No, Clarke Griffin loved her job.  What she didn’t love was the hot (wait, she didn’t really just think that, did she?) asshole who worked in the bookstore right across the aisle.

Because Bellamy Blake was an asshole.  A nicely dressed, dark-haired, freckled, sarcastic asshole.  And Clarke hated him.

Really.

It had all started when she came in for her interview, dressed snappily like her mom had told her in a skirt and blouse.  He’d been sitting at the Starbucks attached to the bookstore, drinking a coffee and looking much too attractive than was fair for a Sunday afternoon.

        She had tried to block the whole thing about of her mind, but there had been some almost-wolf whistling and he’d called her “princess” (seriously, who does that to someone they’d never met before?) and she’d ignored it but it had grated on her nerves.

        Three days later she showed up for her first shift wearing the t-shirt she’d been given only to find the coffee-drinking-wolf-whistler from before wearing a nametag that said “Bellamy” (damn him why did his name have to be that?) and straightening the display of James Patterson’s newest release.

        She wasn’t going to lie, she’d frozen in the middle of the mall staring at him until he noticed and winked (yes  _winked_ , the nerve) at her.

“Hey, princess,” he’d said.  “Nice shirt.”

She wished she could say she’d flipped him off but she’d been too flustered to do even that.  Instead, she’d turned sharply on her heel and flounced into the art supply store to find her manager, determined to never speak to him again.

If only things worked out the way they were supposed to.

Flash forward two months and it was the middle of July.  Clarke was still on summer vacation and still taking all the shifts she could at the store to make extra money.  And somehow, Bellamy Blake had only managed to get more and more irritating with each passing day.

They both seem to be the only ones willing to open their respective stores and so 5:30 AM finds both of them being the only people getting out of cars on their side of the mall’s parking lot and the only ones with open stores before the rest of the mall employees start trickling in around 7:00.

And then there’s lunch.  Getting to the cafeteria food court requires walking past the bookstore and Bellamy at his front register with that shit-eating grin that she alternates between wanting to punch and kiss off (wait, no, punch.  Definitely punch).

Usually he just watches her go smiling while ringing up a customer and on a bad day maybe calling out “see ya, princess.”  But then on July sixth he fell into step beside her as she was zipping her hoodie over her store-issued shirt on her way to lunch.

“Good afternoon, princess.”

The usual greeting.  She still wasn’t sure if he actually knew her name.

She weighed her options.  She could ignore him, of course, but past experiences have shown that to be not the most effective.  He was prone to shadowing her in silence, walking too close, so that their arms brushed and sometimes the backs of their hands so her stomach jumped just a little.

“Blake,” was what she settled on, in what she though was a suitably distant tone that said  _I could care less about you, who are you again?_

She forced herself not to look at him.  After all she could see the smirk that was absolutely plastered across his face in her head perfectly clearly, thank you very much.

“Someone’s in a good mood,” he replied, and  _damn him she can even hear the smirk in his voice._

“Why are you following me?”

He chuckled.  “I’m not  _following_  you.  I’m walking with you.”

“No you’re not.  Walking with someone implies that they want you to be there.  Which is very much not the case.”

“Oh, come now, princess, you’ve hurt my feelings.”

“I could care less,” she snapped, abandoning all pretense.

By now they’d reached the food court and Clarke was hoping she could lose him in the crowd that always inexplicably forms around the hamburger joint (seriously their fries are  _always_  soggy.  Who likes soggy fries?) so she can stand in line for her burrito in peace.

She darted away through a straggling group of teenage girls who were definitely giggling behind their hands at Bellamy (ugh, some people really need standards) and risked a quick glance behind her.  She couldn’t see him, which was good.

Fifteen minutes and a burrito later there was still no sign of him.  She sat at one of her usual tables tucked away behind the sushi joint that no one ever seemed to be able to find and pulled out a book.

Winning sure did feel good.

Another tray clattered down onto the table across from her and she threw her book down angrily.

Bellamy Blake was sitting across from her eating  _one of those soggy fries_.

She always knew there was another reason why she couldn’t stand him.

“How can you eat those?”

He stared.

_Oh, shit, she’d said that out loud._

“What?”

She pointed at his tray.  “Those fries.  They’re always so soggy.  And I’m pretty sure they use Kraft singles on their burgers.”

Bellamy looked down at his burger, still wrapped up, then back up at Clarke.  For the first time in two months he looked genuinely confused.

“What’s wrong with Kraft singles?”

“They taste like plastic.”

“They don’t.”

“They so do.  In fact, I’m sure they actually are plastic,” she retorted at the same time that he added, “and the fries aren’t that soggy.”

They glared at each other across the table.

“Tin foil is bad for the environment.”

She opened and closed her mouth rapidly.  His eyes flicked from her face down to the foil wrapping her burrito.

She felt herself turning red.

“Says the person drinking soda out of a Styrofoam cup.”

He looked down at said cup, smiled slightly, and took a sip from the straw.

“You’ve got a lot of opinions, princess,” he said next.  But it was softer and teasing.  And not in the usual way.  It didn’t feel like he’s making fun of her.

“I could say the same about you, Blake.”

_Dammit, Clarke, don’t smile at him you’ll only encourage him._

He grinned.

He had dimples, she noticed.  Because  _of course_  he did.

She just snarled at him and picked up her book in one hand and her burrito in the other.  If that was where he wanted to sit, well, it wasn’t fine with her but at least she could make the best of the situation.

She thought she heard a chuckle and the rustle of pages.  Carefully after a moment she risked a glance over the top of her book.  He was reading something that looked more like an encyclopedia than a book entitled  _The History of Roman Civilization_.  Of course it was something thick and pretentious with paper-thin pages and micro-lettering.  Of course it was because it was Bellamy Blake.

Thirty minutes later when her lunch break was nearly over, Clarke put her bookmark back, rolled up her foil, and slung her bag over her shoulder and starting back to the art store, thankful for the chance to finally get away from him.

And Bellamy was right behind her.

“What do you think you’re doing now?” she grouched but she found there wasn’t as much meaning behind it as there should have been.

“You’re not the only one with a thirty-five minute lunch break, princess,” he said breezily, shoving his hands in his pockets, that absurd book shoved under his arm.  It was a miracle she hadn’t noticed it earlier really.

Thankfully he didn’t say anything else to her on the walk back.  Just whistled a tune that she should have found significantly more irritating than she did.

When they parted ways he mock tipped a hat to her, grinning.  “Until tomorrow.”

“You wish,” she snapped back, spinning on her heel and marching into the store.

The sound of his laughter followed her.

And was it her imagination or did he spend way more time that afternoon straightening the front displays than was necessary?

And no, she did not start blushing furiously that one time they locked gazes accidentally.  And she absolutely did not have to hide in the back room for ten minutes pretending to do inventory until her cheeks stopped burning.

_Absolutely_  not.

And if they happened to take a lunch break at the same time tomorrow, it was like he said:  _they both had thirty-five minute lunch breaks._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of a not-so-disastrous not-quite lunch date.

Clarke told herself that the reason she was in such a hurry to get to work the next day was because they’d gotten a giant shipment of pastels in the night before that she had to unpack and organize in the back room before opening.

Because of course it had nothing to do with her snarky lunch date from the day before.

No, she thought. Not date.

There were a lot of words to describe Bellamy Blake. Date was not one of them.

And no, she absolutely had not fallen asleep with an image of those dimples in her mind, thanks for asking. That would be ridiculous. Because she was Clarke Griffin and she had class dammit.

When she pulled into the (as usual) empty parking lot, she turned off the ignition and stared at her steering wheel for a moment. Maybe she would just eat lunch in the back room today. Yeah, she could do that. She’d done it several times when she first started working. Maybe she could even talk to her manager about using that chair in the corner of her office.

Clarke’s head hit the steering wheel with a thump.

What was she thinking?

She’d survived two months of Bellamy Blake’s ridiculous nicknames and uncalled for comments. And now just because he’d sat across the table from her yesterday and had a nice smile and his freckles looked even better up close and his skin was tanner than she thought and the color green really looked nice on him she was going to avoid him?

As if she was going to let him win.

She wrenched her keys out of the ignition and opened the door. She didn’t dare glance around the rest of the parking lot looking for him. The lot had been empty when she pulled in but that by no means meant his car hadn’t appeared since then.

She marched forward purposefully, back ramrod straight, head forward. The only sound in the parking lot was the rustling leaves in the trees planted in the lane dividers.

Okay, she’ll admit it: she was a little let down.

Clarke was punctual to a fault. It was one of the reasons why she was consistently given the opening shifts. She was always walking down the shiny tiles of the mall’s center aisle sometime between 5:25 and 5:30 and the store was always open and ready for business just before 6:00 when the doors of the mall actually opened to the public.

The bookstore also was supposed to open at 6:00.

Of course, the only reason Clarke knew this was because she used to shop there. It was not, of course, because she’d casually stalked the hours printed neatly in the front window to see when the asshole was most likely to be coming in to work.

Her innate knowledge of the shift changes at the bookstore were naturally just a result of working across from it and watching the employees come and go. Because that’s all Bellamy Blake was: a fellow mall employee who happened to call her “princess” and force his unwanted presence on her.

Because it was unwanted. Of course. Who the hell would willingly spend time with him? Not Clarke, that was for sure.

And when she got to the art store and saw that the bookstore was already open and there was a male figure shuffling around putting out new books in the used section her heart definitely didn’t skip a beat. That would be ridiculous. Because Clarke Griffin’s heart didn’t skip beats. Especially not for Bellamy Blake.

And of course Clarke was overjoyed when she realized that the male shadow flitting around in the back was actually Henry, not Bellamy, and that Bellamy was actually nowhere in sight.

No, that whooshing noise absolutely was not the floor dropping out from under her and she absolutely was not thinking about the awkward glances she and Bellamy would not be sharing today.

Because like she said before she was Clarke Griffin. And Clarke Griffin hated Bellamy Blake.

Hated him. Right. Absolutely. Hated him.

By 11:30 Clarke wanted to murder Henry.

She hadn’t worked a full shift at the same time as him in at least a month (they usually just passed each other: her leaving, him coming) and so she’d never realized that he cranked up the bookstore’s trademark smooth jazz soundtrack to full blast so that it encroached on her own territory which she always kept blissfully silent.

Clarke hated jazz. And now she hated Henry, too.

Clarke’s manager told her to take an early lunch break and come back in forty, which was new but not entirely surprising. After all, Clarke had been grinding her teeth and aggressively organizing their paintbrush selection while shooting angry glares at Henry as he chatted up customers for the last hour.

As she threw on a sweatshirt and grabbed her purse from the backroom the unbidden thought where was Bellamy? trickled into her mind.

Of course that was more a result of the fact that Bellamy kept the jazz music tastefully low and didn’t wear loud sweater vests. Not because she had actually been looking forward to them sitting across the table from each other and not talking (because that part was important) or anything.

Sighing, she left the store and set off for the food court. She took one last glance at the entrance to the bookstore, cursing herself as she did so. Still no sign of Bellamy. Henry waved. She pretended not to notice.

Mature, Griffin, she chided herself. Real mature.

It must just be that bookstore, she decided. That bookstore just must attract asshol—

“Fancy seeing you here,” a familiar voice said behind her.

Clarke froze in her tracks then pivoted slowly.

Bellamy was striding toward her, unfastening his nametag quickly from his shirt. He grinned at her.

Dammit those dimples were even better than she remembered. Curse him and his attractive face.

“You’re early,” he added.

She just stared.

“You all right there, princess?”

She turned around and started walking again. She heard his footsteps hurrying to catch up with her. She wasn’t going to look, she wasn’t going to—okay, whatever she snuck a look. Sue her. He looked even better in blue, apparently. Clarke thought there probably wasn’t a color he didn’t look good in. Curse him. Except maybe pastel orange. No one looked good in pastel orange. The thought brought her a small bit of reassurance.

“Bellamy,” she said coolly after a pause that was just the right length to communicate I don’t know why you’re here and I don’t care but also wasn’t too long so as to be awkward.

“Having a good day, princess?” he asked cheerily.

“Oh, just fabulous,” she ground out.

“What, you hate my delightful coworkers, too? Imagine the irony.”

She chanced a glance over at him only to regret her choice immediately. Because of course he was grinning at her.

That also definitely was not her stomach fluttering. No. She was just hungry. And angry at Henry. That was it. She was furious at Henry.

“Henry’s fine,” she lied.

Bellamy chuckled. “You don’t have to lie to me, princess. I saw the way you were glaring at him.” He paused. “An the number you were doing on those paintbrushes.” He whistled under his breath.

Clarke bristled. But that probably had more to do with the blush rising on her cheeks than anything. How dare he.

“So you were spying on me.”

He was smirking again, she could feel it. “I wouldn’t call it spying.”

Clarke couldn’t bring herself to justify that with a response. Instead she asked, “More soggy fries for you today?”

“More killing the environment for you?” he retorted.

She looked over angrily, raising her eyebrows. “That’s rich coming from you.”

He was grinning. “I came prepared.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

He patted the messenger bag slung over his shoulder that she hadn’t noticed until then. “Why do you care, princess?”

She growled. “I don’t.”

Because she didn’t. Care, that was. Not about Bellamy Blake. Not about him eating soggy fries or burgers with plastic cheese on them.

“Then why did you ask?”

Once again the absurd line by the burger joint saved her from a situation she in no way wanted to be a part of. Really, she preferred him when he was quiet. Then she could pretend he wasn’t an obnoxious ass who made her want to pull out her own hair. Or his. She would settle for his.

The line for burritos was longer than usual and Clarke waited impatiently. When she finally paid for and received her lunch, she found that Bellamy was already sitting at the same table from yesterday, that giant Roman encyclopedia thing already out on the table in front of him. He was distractedly taking occasional bites out of his burger, eyes flickering back and forth across the page, completely engrossed.

He barely even looked up when she sat down and pulled out her worn sci-fi novel before uncapping the bottle of Sprite sitting next to him on the table.

She rolled her eyes.

“I came prepared” he’d said.

“Plastic is only slightly better than Styrofoam,” she told him.

The corners of his lips quirked up. “It’s recyclable,” he told his book.

“Do you know how many plastic bottles actually end up not being recycled every day?” she demanded.

He looked up, a crease between his eyebrows. “I don’t understand how that’s my problem, princess. I’m planning on recycling this. Therefore it will not add to your statistic.” He went back to reading.

She glared at the top of his head for several more moments before sitting down and unwrapping her burrito. “Not that it matters,” she told the tortilla in a low voice, “but tin foil is also recyclable.”

Bellamy coughed. It sounded suspiciously like he was trying to cover up a laugh. For some reason she didn’t want to think about that made a warm ball of something appear in Clarke’s chest. To distract herself she ripped open the cover for her book and removed her bookmark.

Thirty minutes later Clarke wrapped up her excess foil and slipped her book back into her bag. Bellamy smoothly stood up as well and threw his messenger bag strap over his shoulder.

“Back to the grinding stone, huh, princess?” he joked, a twinkling light in his eyes that Clarke forced herself to ignore.

“I actually quite like my job, thank you,” she replied tersely.

“I never meant to suggest you didn’t. Just that it’s gotta be tiring to teach people what kind of paint brushes they need. And oh, oh, listening to deliberations over whether or not they want moss green yarn or forest green like there’s a difference.”

She sniffed. “There is a difference. But of course an uncultured swine like you couldn’t be able to see it.”

He let out a full laugh at that one. And it wasn’t like Clarke hadn’t heard him laugh before or anything because she had. All the time, really. It’s just he’d never been laughing at something she’d said.

“Maybe you’ll just have to teach me.” His tone was joking and yet not at the same time.

He wants me to teach him about yarn? Seriously? What kind of weirdo wants someone to teach them about yarn?

“You could just look up pictures,” she snapped back. “Then again I’d be surprised if someone like you knew how to use Google.”

A chuckle this time. “You’re right,” he agreed. Oh, thank God, she thought. “But then it would lack your…personal touch.”

She tripped over her next step. Hopefully he hadn’t noticed that. She would die if he’d noticed that.

Just like the day before, their paths diverged in front of their respective stores. Bellamy hovered in place for a second, head turned slightly toward her like he was waiting for something.

Finally he said, “See you around, Clarke,” and was gone.

Clarke stared after him. So he did know her name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come cry with me on [Tumblr?](http://maytheymeeetagain.tumblr.com)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke has the day off. She also doesn't know what to do with herself as a particularly handsome not-so-stranger haunts her thoughts.

Clarke went home after work feeling confused and lost.

Neither of her parents were home yet and so she went upstairs, sat in her desk chair, and stared at her laptop for an hour, telling herself that she _shouldn’t do it_. Because this was Bellamy Blake she was talking about and these feelings that she was having were downright ridiculous.

Clarke Griffin was _not_ the type of girl who stalked guys on the Internet. She wasn’t. So she was going to go downstairs and watch some MTV for a while and wait until her parents came home and then she was going to eat dinner and _not stalk Bellamy Blake on the Internet_.

Three hours later Clarke was back at her desk on Bellamy’s Facebook page. She hated herself. But she was also curious. And in the end her curiosity had won out over her common sense and any semblance of self-respect.

But let’s be honest, after this, she didn’t have any of that left

She’d felt the urge to look Bellamy up multiple times since the beginning of the summer but the disgust she expected to feel for his page full of parties, womanizing, and obnoxious frat-boy-like posts had always kept her from doing it.

Clarke found no such posts.

In fact, Bellamy’s Facebook page was so squeaky clean it might as well have belonged to someone’s 85 year old grandmother.

Clarke hated the timeline feature (yes she was aware that it had been there forever now but that didn’t mean she dislike it any less) and she’d had minimal luck going through his posts. But she’d gone back far enough to see that he lived with his younger sister (who actually looked kind of familiar), was in college at the local university just out of town, and actually didn’t appear to be as much of an ass on the Internet as he was in real life. His pictures, however were a gold mine of information.

He had more friends that she would have expected for a guy who forced his presence on unwilling girls and thought up obnoxious pet names for people. There was some guy named Miller who popped up in like every third one and was that Miller’s boyfriend? Maybe. They looked like a couple. A cute one, too.  
If Clarke had been telling herself the truth she would have admitted that the reason why she was currently going through Bellamy’s pictures from last September was because she was looking for a girlfriend. Not because she wanted to be his girlfriend. Absolutely fucking not. But more just because she was curious.

But she wasn’t being honest with herself so she told herself it was because she was looking for some kind of insight into this guy’s life.  
Needless to say, she went to sleep dissatisfied that night.

 

She had the next day off. She’d originally been scheduled to work it but her manager had pulled her aside yesterday when she’d been about to leave and told her to stay home because she’d been working herself to death lately.

If Clarke had been anyone but Clarke this wouldn’t have been an issue. Most high school students would be overjoyed to know that they had a day where they didn’t have to get up at 4;45 to go to work.

Clarke was not most teenagers.

She tried to sleep in. She woke up at 5:30.

She tried to go back to sleep. She stared at the ceiling for two hours.

She tried to be the typical lazy teenager and put on sweatpants. She hadn’t even made it to her bathroom before she was running back into her room to put on something nice.

She sat at the kitchen table with her mom and ate oatmeal. She tried to watch the Friends rerun on TV. By 10 she thought she was going to combust.  
She wandered around the house looking for something to do. Could she clean the bathrooms? No, they were already spotless. Her room? Nope, she’d done that last night in an attempt to stop thinking about Bellamy (spoiler alert: it hadn’t worked).

She was vacuuming the already impeccably clean formal living room when her mom came out of her office with a confused look on her face.

“Clarke, honey, what on earth are you doing?”

Clarke flicked off the vacuum and looked up at her mom. “Cleaning?”

“I appreciate the effort but I just vacuumed the house yesterday while you were at work.”

 _Work_. Clarke wished she hadn’t said that because now she was thinking about freckles and dark brown eyes and messy mops of black hair and bottles of Sprite and Roman history encyclopedias.

“Why don’t you get out of the house?” her mom suggested. “Go to a coffee shop? Go for a walk? Maybe go to the park and sketch?”

Clarke stared at her for a moment. She looked at the watch. 11:00.

 _Oh, what the hell_ , she thought.

“Good idea, Mom, thanks.” She smiled at her as he mom retreated into her office. Then Clarke was bounding up the stairs to grab her sketchbook and a box of charcoal.

It wasn’t until she was pulling out of her driveway that she let herself think this was probably one of the worst decisions she’d ever made.

 

As she’d been expecting, the parking lot was a mess. She found an open spot towards the back and sat staring out her windshield for a second. Before she could overthink everything she grabbed her bag and jumped out of the car, heading in the direction of the front doors.

She took up residence on the lip of the fountain in the center of the mall and started sketching. She didn’t really know what she was drawing and she didn’t care, just followed the careful glide of the charcoal across the paper with her eyes.

Clarke had always been an observational artist. She needed a subject. Sometimes it came from her thoughts or other times from what was around her, but it was rare that she suddenly just had an idea.

And so she drew the palm trees in the corner, and the long line of people waiting for their Starbucks order, and the toddler-aged twins chasing each other around their table while their exhausted looking mother ate a pretzel.

Her phone vibrated next to her and she picked it up. The alarm she’d set was up. It was 12:25.

She took a deep breath, it was now or never, really.

As always, she got a burrito. And then, with faltering steps, she headed for their table. Because that’s how she started thinking of it sometime yesterday. _Their_  table. It was ridiculous but it was.

He was there already. She stopped suddenly, holding her tray. Her hands were sweaty. Why were her hands sweaty? This was just some guy. He wasn’t even that. He was just a guy.

 _Come on_ , _Clarke_ , she told herself. _You have this_.

And she did. Clarke Griffin was a strong, capable, independent woman who didn’t need no man. (Not that she had one or was in the process of acquiring one but whatever. That had all sounded better in her head.)

She put her tray down and sat like this was nothing. Like it was just any other day. Like she wasn’t supposed to be at home reading or watching TV. Like Bellamy Blake wasn’t supposed to be looking at her with a look you’d expect from someone who had just watched their firstborn child get murdered.

“Clarke?” he asked, and his voice cracked in the middle just a bit, betraying his confusion.

“Hey,” she said quietly.

She wished he hadn’t said anything. She wished he’d just looked at her, contented himself with knowing that she was there, and then gone back to his encyclopedia. A picture of a statue wearing an olive wreath glared out at her from the page he was on. She preferred to meet its eyes than Bellamy’s.

He cleared his throat. “What are you doing here if you aren’t working?”

“How do you know I’m not?” she challenged, carefully unwrapping her burrito.

He gave her a confused look but some of his confidence had trickled back in. “Where’s the shirt, princess?”

She looked down at herself. The one flaw in her plan. The one thing she hadn’t thought of. The most obvious one. The shirt. Of course.

“Okay, so I’m not working.”

“You didn’t answer my question.” He was smirking slightly now. “Missed me that much, huh?”

It embarrassed her how the first word that popped into her mind was yes.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Blake,” is what she settled on instead.

He chuckled, those dimples making a reappearance. Clarke swallowed and looked away, rummaging in her bag for her book as an excuse.

“What are you reading?” he asked softly when she pulled it out.

She held up the worn and battered copy of _2010: A Space Odyssey_ that she’d found in a secondhand bookstore a couple months earlier.

He laughed again. “Fitting.”

She turned the cover back towards her, fighting the smile that was threatening to take over her face. That was what everyone who knew her always said when they saw her reading the book. _Clarke Griffin reading Arthur C. Clarke,_ they’d say. _Appropriate_.

And it was true that Clarke had first been attracted to the 2001 series because she shared a name with its author but once she’d started reading she’d been engrossed. She was on her third read through and still couldn’t imagine starting something else. She’d heard it referred to as a book hangover before. It was oddly fitting.

“They’re good,” she told him. “You should give them a try. I have all three.”

He nodded then tapped the pages of his own tome. “I’m more a historical fiction guy myself.”

  
“That doesn’t look like fiction.” The words were out of her mouth before she realized that she was thinking them. They were accompanied by a distinctly flirty tone that had color rushing into her cheeks even faster.

He chuckled. A deep sound low in his throat that did something unspeakable to Clarke’s pulse. “No,” he said, just as low. “I guess it’s not.”

There was a silence in which they just stared. Clarke couldn’t look away. Instead she just studied the wonder in Bellamy’s eyes as he studied her face.

“Why are you here, Clarke?”

“Don’t make me say it.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t go back from it. And I’m not ready for that yet.”

“All right,” he said, surprisingly softly. “I can live with that.”

They spent the rest of his lunch break in silence, accompanied only by the crinkle of foil and the rustle of pages. When he stood and started packing up his bag, she wordlessly did the same. They crossed the food court together, their arms brushing occasionally. Clarke was going to pretend that it didn’t send pinpricks of energy running down her arms. Because that was ridiculous. And she wasn’t ready to admit that yet either.

They parted in front of the bookstore. Except this time Clarke didn’t have her own time clock to go back to.

He kicked the floor lightly and looked down, clearly a little bit awkward. She just waited, sensing that there was something else he needed to say.

“Can I have your number?”

Well _that_ certainly hadn’t been what she was expecting.

“I’m working tomorrow,” she said in reply. “Maybe if you play your cards right, you’ll get it then.” She couldn’t help the smile that accompanied those words.

They were absolutely flirting now and she couldn’t even bring herself to care.

He laughed again and she decided that yes that was a sound she absolutely liked.

“Okay.” A pause then, “See you tomorrow, princess.”

And he was disappearing back into the bookstore and Clarke felt like she was rooted to the ground, cursed to watch his retreating back as he headed for the stock room.

 

When she got her home, she was intercepted by her mom in the kitchen.

“You have a nice day, honey?” she was asked as she raided the fridge for an apple.

Clarke took a bite and mumbled, “yep” around it.

“Did you do some sketching?”

Clarke sighed. Clearly this was not going to be an easy conversation to get out of. She nodded and opened up her sketchbook to the picture palm trees and paged through the other drawings. Her mom _oohed_ and _aahed_ in all the right places and smiled when Clarke pulled the sketchbook away from her after the picture of the laughing toddlers.

“They look wonderful, Clarke.”

Clarke smiled. “Thanks, Mom.”

It wasn’t until she was safely ensconced in her room that she allowed herself to flip the page that the toddlers were on to look at those cheekbones, that fringe that just dipped into his eyes, those freckles that she knew she’d be dreaming about later.

Yes, Clarke had sketched Bellamy Blake. And no, she didn’t know how she felt about it. But yes, it did scare the shit out of her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come cry with me on [Tumblr?](http://maytheymeeetagain.tumblr.com)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She had no idea when the hell it had happened but sometime over the last few days, Bellamy had transitioned from that obnoxiously awful guy at the bookstore to someone she might even call a friend. But of course that’s all they were. Friends. Because Clarke Griffin and Bellamy Blake could never be anything else. And that was imagining that they could even manage friendship."

Clarke wished that she could say she didn’t spend that evening with her stomach simultaneously twisting itself into knots and with an anxiously breathless feeling that she couldn’t really describe.  But she did.  She had no idea when the hell it had happened but sometime over the last few days, Bellamy had transitioned from that obnoxiously awful guy at the bookstore to someone she might even call a friend.

But of course that’s all they were.  Friends.  Because Clarke Griffin and Bellamy Blake could never be anything else.  And that was imagining that they could even manage friendship.  Clarke had her doubts about that, too.

Nevertheless, she did look for his car in the parking lot the next day when she got to work.  He wasn’t there yet.  But she knew that he’d be there.  And sure enough, she saw his familiar figure slip into the bookstore as she’s opening her register.  She tells herself not to smile.

She does anyway.

She finds herself checking her watch during the first half of her shift.  Clarke never checks her watch.  She never checks her watch because she loves her job.  She loves talking about the different kinds of paper they sell, and why you might want this paintbrush over this one, and discussing new brand of pastels, and yes, even helping customers figure out what shade of green yarn would look best in the scarf they’re knitting.  But today something was different.  And of course she knew exactly what it was.

The prospect of lunch with Bellamy.

And no, Clarke was not necessarily happy about that.

She’d really known Bellamy for all of three days.  How could she be so damn excited about seeing him and spending as short a time as _thirty-five minutes_ with him?  It was ridiculous.  She was ridiculous.  She needed an intervention.  Obviously.

So she struggled through her shift, wishing that the elderly lady looking at cat beads would just hurry up already because it was noon and that meant lunch.  Finally the woman paid for her purchase and Clarke’s manager gave her the go-ahead to take her break.  Clarke zipped up her hoodie and left the store in a rush.

Yes, she had considered walking slowly.  But then she’d decided to hell with it and not done it.

He wasn’t in the hallway.  She noticed that immediately.  Because at some point over the last three days she’d become exceptionally attuned to Bellamy Blake for reasons that she didn’t really want to think about.  That’s why she immediately zeroed in on his figure still standing behind the cash register, laughing with a group of teenaged girls as one of them flirtatiously handed him her debit card.

_Seriously_ , Clarke thought.   _How was it possible to flirtatiously give someone a chunk of plastic?_

And no, of course she wasn’t jealous.  What did she have to be jealous of?  She didn’t like Bellamy.  At least not really.  At least as nothing more than a friend.  Because she was done denying that much to herself.  She and Bellamy were friends.

And no, the twisting serpent-like feeling in the pit of her stomach didn’t immediately dissolve when he looked up, locked eyes with her, and smiled, more widely than anything he was dishing out to the girls.  Because that would have been absurd.

He brusquely handed back the girl’s debit card, eyes still on Clarke.  And obviously her friend noticed because she gave him a glare as the two girls exited the store.  Bellamy leaned over to the guy he was working with and said something to him, to which he received only a nod in response.

Then he looked back at Clarke, held up one finger as if to say _give me a second_ and then disappeared into the back room.  He emerged a speedy two minutes later with his messenger bag over his shoulder and jogged up to her.

She tried to look annoyed at the delay.  She failed.

“Hey,” he said, falling into step beside her as they started in the direction of the food court.

Hey,” she replied, trying to sound nonchalant.

“You waited.”

“Of course.  Who the hell else is going to harass me for thirty-five minutes?”

He laughed.  “You know you love it, princess.”

“Thus why I waited obviously.”

That earned her a smile.

They’d established an easy routine by this and they wordlessly split at the burger joint as Clarke headed toward the line for her burritos and Bellamy waited for his soggy fries and burger.  Then they reconvened at the table.  Clarke already had her book out when he sat down but she closed the cover briefly (because it was _polite_ , okay?) holding her place with her finger.

“What is that thing anyway?” she asked, gesturing to the book he was pulling out of his bag.

He gave her an appraising look.  “An almost complete history of the Roman Empire?”

“Why?”

He laughed again.  She was really starting to like that sound.  And that was absolutely a gigantic problem.

“I like history,” he replied honestly.

“So I guessed,” she replied in a deadpan voice.

Another laugh.   _Damn him he had to stop doing that._  Or something bad was going to happen.  She wasn’t really sure what is was (okay, it was more that she didn’t want to give it the necessary thought because it terrified her) but she knew it would be bad.  And something that she’d regret.

“So, princess,” he asked as he unwrapped his burger.  “I don’t think I’ve ever asked you: why an art store?”

“Because I’m an artist,” she replied honestly taking a giant bite out of her burrito.

That was one of the best things about not being interested in the guy you were eating around.  Being able to eat like a slob and not care.  To hell with dainty “ladylike” eating habits.  With Bellamy it didn’t matter.  Especially not when he was shoving what had to be eighteen fries into his mouth at the same time.  Because that absolutely was not endearing.  No, not at all.

“What kind?”

“I sketch mostly,” she said, shrugging.  “It’s more of a hobby than anything else.”

He hummed.  “You any good?”

She frowned.  “Well, I’m not a very good judge of that, am I?”

He smiled and sat back in his chair.  “I don’t know, princess, you tell me.  Are you?”

“I’m not _bad_.”

“You’re avoiding the question.”  He was smirking now.

“I am not!”

“Clarke, Clarke, Clarke.”

“What?”

He just smiled and took a bite of his burger.  He studied her as he chewed.  “So can I see your work sometime?”

She thought back to the sketch of him she’d stared at before going to sleep last night and color rushed into her cheeks.  “No!” she responded, perhaps a bit too quickly and forcefully.

He cocked his head to the side.

“It’s private,” she added.  “I barely show my work to anyone.”

“Right, of course,” he said, but he might have sounded a bit hurt.

_And why did that make her stomach twist?_

This was ridiculous.  It was out of control.  There were shows to help you fix this kind of thing right?  Where was the reality TV show called “I might have the smallest of crushes on the obnoxious guy I eat lunch with at work and I hate it, please make it go away?”   Did it exist yet?  Because if it did, Clarke wanted onto it.

Not that she necessarily had a crush.  That was probably too strong of a word for it.  It was interest.  Admiration.  Fascination?  No, that made her sound like a stalker.

Why the hell was she thinking about this anyway?  It barely even mattered.  Because in the grand scheme of things, Bellamy didn’t matter.  Not one bit.  Not really.

Okay, that might have been a lie.

“Art is my escape,” she explained, because for some reason she was tempted to reach out and smooth that deep line that had appeared between his eyebrows.  And since obviously she wasn’t going to touch him, her only option was to try with words.  “My mom’s the only one who ever really gets to see my sketches.  Otherwise they become too real.  Does that make any sense?”

He was smiling now, any hurt that had been in his expression gone.  “Sure does, princess.”

She smiled back and his grin stretched wider.  That shouldn’t have been doing anything to Clarke’s pulse.  Because Bellamy was just some guy.  Just a friend.  That was all.

Maybe if she repeated that over and over in her head her body would believe it.

To distract herself she reopened her book and pretended to read.  She said pretended because she was sneaking more looks at Bellamy, who was fighting a smile and staring down at a page with a lot of pictures of vandalized statues.

Yes.  Everything was a complete disaster.

She was both happy and sad when the break was over.  Because at least now she didn’t have to pretend to not be sneaking looks at him and she could actually go back to doing something productive.  But on the other hand she knew she’d still be sneaking looks at him, this time across the hallway, and it was very unlikely she was actually going to get anything done.

She swore to God, if this newfound and extremely bizarre and unfounded obsession with Bellamy Blake got her fired she was going to flip a table.  Preferably one in the bookstore so she could blame it on Bellamy and get him fired, too.  That would be fitting.  Each of them getting the other fired.

Though of course Clarke would prefer to keep her job.  And for Bellamy to keep his.  Because obviously yesterday had been a fluke with her showing up when she wasn’t working.  And even if she were to do it again, she couldn’t expect him to.  He probably was just doing this because he wanted company and she was around.  It was nothing personal, nothing special to do with her.  Of course.

But that was kind of hard to believe when he was waiting for her with that half-smile dancing around his lips. “Ready, princess?”

And _fucking hell_ when had that nickname started sounding more endearing than mocking?

“Yeah,” she said.  “But first…hold on.”

She slipped a pen out of her bag and pulled one of his discarded napkins, spotted with grease, but still usable, towards her.  She carefully but quickly scribbled down ten digits and held it out to him.  “For you.  Since, you know, you asked and all.”  Suddenly she felt awkward, like a third grader writing out “Do you like me, check yes or no?”.  But that was ridiculous.  Because he’d asked.

And _dammit, Bellamy_ , why was your face lighting up like that?  It was just a phone number, _for God's sake_.

He took the napkin from her.  “I thought you were joking.”  He sounded a bit awed.  It wasn't helping.

Okay, that was really cute and endearing.  She shrugged.  “You weren’t a total pain in the ass today.  So I figured I’d be nice.”

He laughed then checked his watch.  “We should be getting back.”

She nodded.  “Right you are.”

The air was different between them now.  She pointedly stared straight ahead, keeping her arm still so that it brushed his as little as possible.  When they reached the area between their two stores, she quickly said goodbye and hurried into the art store, worried about what she might do if he kept looking at her _like that_.  Plus she had a time clock to punch.

When she returned to the register, her manager was giving her a weird look.

“What?” Clarke asked, perhaps a little too harshly.

“I thought you hated that guy.”  Her manager jerked a finger in the direction of Bellamy, who was still standing in the center aisle, retying one of his shoes.

“I do.  Well, um.”  Clarke stumbled over her words.  “I don’t?”

“Uh-huh, sure.”

“We’re barely even friends!” Clarke protested.

Her manager flicked another glance over in Bellamy’s direction as he stepped in behind the register, reattaching his name tag to his shirt.  Clarke thought she heard her say, “Tell him that” but she’d probably imagined it.

No, she’d _definitely_ imagined it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come cry with me on [Tumblr?](http://maytheymeeetagain.tumblr.com)


	5. Chapter 5

Clarke was starting to think that her manager was getting tired of her because when she was leaving for home the day before she'd once again told Clarke  that she wasn't needed the next day and she should go do something fun with her time instead.

Clarke had protested that she enjoyed working and she didn't have anything else to do but her manager had been firm.  She'd even gone as far as to suggest that Clarke call Bellamy.

At that, Clarke had turned beet red, stammered out something about them not really being friends and the fact that she didn't even have his phone number, and then run out, leaving her manager laughing in the background.

Now faced with a day to herself Clarke was in her car, driving to the other, bigger, mall on the other side of town to buy herself a few necessary essentials that she'd been putting off forever.  She'd always hated shopping and lingerie shopping was her least favorite kind of all.  Especially since she was cheap and usually bought all her bras at department stores where literally anyone could walk by at anytime while she were looking at that leopard print lace that she'd never actually consider buying but it was so pretty and  _dammit that old guy in the overalls section was totally staring and this was absolutely the creepiest encounter of her life_.

But basically all of her bras were on their last legs and she really couldn't afford to put it off much longer.  That's what she told herself as she pulled into a spot in the parking garage and got out of the car.

At least the nice part about going to this mall was that there was literally no risk of running into Bellamy.  Because there was always the chance that he would be working at the bookstore and the last thing she needed after the disaster that was their parting yesterday was to run into him by accident when she wasn't prepared.

And it should be noted that when Clarke said disaster what she really meant was the extremely adorable look he'd given her after she'd handed him her phone number.  And the way that it had made Clarke's stomach tie itself into knots.  And the way that her breath came a bit shorter when he looked at her.  And the way that she kept thinking about all of these things for the rest of the day.  Yes, a disaster, plain and simple.

The JCPenney intimates section (and seriously, why were they called intimates?  That made it all the creepier, honestly) was deserted, just the way Clarke liked it.  However, it usually was nice if there was at least one other person there because then the salesladies didn't stare at you as you tried to decide between off-white and eggshell and didn't swoop in the second you deliberated over testing out another band size.

Both of these things happened.  But Clarke must have managed to sound angry enough the third time that they left her alone, and just gossiped about Susie from jackets and coats who was absolutely hooking up with Matt from shoes.  Clarke rolled her eyes.  Workplace romance.  What a jok-

"Clarke?" an incredulous voice.

Clarke dropped the hot pink bra she'd been holding and spun around, trying to hide the two that were already in her hands, as if Bellamy hadn't already put two and two together.

Because of course it was Bellamy.  Because of course Clarke couldn't get away from him, even on her goddamn day off at the mall on the compete other side of town.  And of course her heartbeat was galloping and she felt like she couldn't breathe.  And of course he was looking particularly handsome in a pair of dark-washed jeans and a loose t-shirt.  Of course.  Because she just couldn't catch a break.

"Bellamy?" she squeaked.

The only upside was that he looked just as shocked to see her there as she was to see him.  And he was making a pointed effort to not look at the bras she was clutching in a death grip and instead was staring at the middle of her forehead, apparently unable to meet her eyes.  She was thankful for that.  (She herself was focused on the vicinity of her right cheekbone.  How had she never noticed how good his cheekbones were? _Dammit, Clarke_ , she thought,  _there are times for that and this is absolutely not one of them_.

So she shifted her eyes to his shoulder instead, not that that was much better.  The boy was just like a walking piece of art.  It was a problem.

"What are you doing here?" she blurted.

He gestured to the escalator behind him.  "My sister works upstairs in the juniors department.  I had to bring her something."

"Ah."

"And you're...shopping?" he asked, his voice lilting up at the end, clearly trying to move the conversation away from the section they were standing in.

Clarke's cheeks burned even hotter.  "Yeah," she said lamely.

An awkward silence fell between the two of them.  Still they weren't making eye contact.

"Uhm," he said finally.  "You want to go get lunch or something?  Since we're both here?"  She hesitated and he saw it.  "I mean, you don't have to obviously, but-" he stopped and kicked the floor with his shoe.

"No," she blurted out.  "I'd love to, but I, uh..."

He brightened and her heart squeezed again.   _Damn him.  Damn him to hell_.  "I'll wait for you?" he offered.

"Sure," she allowed, hoping that that meant he'd wander across the way and go look at polo shirts or something (did he wear polo shirts?  She didn't know.  She didn't think she'd ever seen him in one.)

"Okay," he said, smiling slightly, and then  _taking a seat in front of the damn fitting rooms_ and pulling out a small paperback that Clarke couldn't see the title of.

Clarke gaped for a minute then turned back around to the rack.  Carefully she leaned down at picked up the hot pink bra she'd dropped earlier and covertly checked to see if Bellamy was watching her.  His nose was buried firmly in the book.

She wasn't sure if she was more relieved or disappointed.  And no, she didn't want to talk about where the disappointment was coming from, thank you very much.

She scouted through the rest of the aisles, amassed a few choices, and followed one of the ladies into the changing area.  She thought she saw Bellamy sneak a look at her as she walked by, and she stood taller, thrusting her shoulders back a bit more to give off the air of confidence (even though she was practically shaking on the inside) and allowed herself to be shown into one of the fitting rooms.

"Do you need any help?" the salesgirl asked, beaming too much.

Clarke gave her a dark look, said, "no, thanks" and then closed the door in her face.

She would have felt bad except she had more pressing things to worry about.

Like the fact that  _Bellamy fucking Blake_ was sitting on one of those dumb leather ottomans that they always kept outside changing rooms in the  _lingerie section of JCPenney_ waiting for her to try on and buy bras so they could go get lunch.

This was easily the most ridiculous thing that had ever happened to Clarke in her entire life.

She ended up buying three bras, the hot pink one included.  She had covertly slid past Bellamy and tried to not leave them on the counter for too long as she paid but he didn't look up from his book once.   _The gentleman_.  It made it all the harder to convince herself that she was being ridiculous.  So she paid and accepted her bag and then he was right next to her  _because of course he'd been listening the whole time._

"Ready?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said, trying to keep her voice calm and probably failing miserably.

He gave her a taste of that oh, so handsome smile and the ground shifted a little.

Yep.  She was royally fucked.  And she had no idea what she was going to do about it.

 

The food court was larger than theirs and after a moment of deliberation, Clarke decided on a slice of pizza.  Bellamy had opened his mouth briefly once they'd arrived as if to offer to buy her lunch but had quickly closed it before he'd gotten a word out.

Which was good.  Buying her food mad it seem far too much like this was a date.  And she was far from ready for that.

Wait, no, that's not what she meant.

What she meant was that she would never be ready for that.  Obviously.  Because all this was was her body's natural response to a guy who was really hot.  Because she wasn't going to dispute that.  Bellamy was hot.  Like rock god hot.

And just because she was  _physically_ attracted to him didn't mean that there was anything else there.  It was just physical attraction.  That was all.  Obviously.  Because the only other option was that she'd developed a crush on Bellamy Blake.

Clarke almost laughed out loud in line.

That was absurd.  Crush on Bellamy Blake.  Please.

He was ripping open a package of chopsticks in preparation of digging into a plate of chow mein when she sat down across from him.  He flashed her another smile.  She returned it easily and without thinking.

"You want some?" he asked, gesturing to his lunch.

"No, it's okay," she said.  "It's yours, I'm not going to steal it."

"Princess," he said after chewing a bite.  "Come on, I can see you practically salivating over it."

She gave him a sideways look then relented.  "Okay, fine."

He smiled and held out the chopsticks to her.  Their fingers brushed and it was like electricity zapped across her skin.  She thought she did a pretty good job of hiding her own reaction but she definitely heard his soft intake of breath at the contact.  She bit her lip.

The chow mein was delicious and she nodded appreciatively as she handed him back his chopsticks.  He grinned.

"Good, right?" he asked.  "I come here every time I come to drop things off for my sister."

"Is it something that you do often?" she asked, preparing to take a bite out of her pizza.

"Only occasionally," he replied.  "She's a bit forgetful.  This time she forgot her lunch."  He made a face and Clarke laughed.  "Do you have any siblings?"

She shook her head.  "Nope.  Just me."

"Does it get lonely?"

She considered that.  "Not really.  But then I don't know what it's like to have a sibling so who knows."

He smiled at that.  "Good point, princess."  A pause then, under his breath, "smart _and_ beautiful."

Clarke choked and spluttered around her next bite of pizza and Bellamy's cheeks quickly flushed redder than red.

"Sorry," he said quietly.

"It's fine," Clarke said, wiping under her eyes to stop them from watering.  "You just...you caught me by surprise."

He gave her an honest look. " Of course."  Then smiled but there was something off about it.  Clarke's gut twisted.

They ate the rest of the meal in silence.  Clarke was beginning to think she'd blown it.  Whatever the hell  _this_ was because, God help her, she had no idea.

At least he waited for her to finish and even went as far as to walk her to her car.  He didn't leave right away either, just stood there for a second, scuffing the toe of his shoe along the asphalt.  That was his nervous tic, she was starting to learn.  And it came out when he had something to say.

"Clarke," he started finally, "I know that originally you didn't like me.  And...that you probably still don't, at least not a lot."

She opened her mouth but he cut her off.

"It's fine," he added quickly.  "I could have been better to you when we first met and I'm sorry about that."

"What brought this on?" she asked once he'd finished.

He chewed on his lip and looked away for a second.  He spoke his next words to the silver BMW next to them instead of her.  "I heard you talking to you boss yesterday.  When you told her that we aren't really friends."

"That's not what I said!" she protested.  "I said we're  _barely_  even friends." _  
_

When the words fell out of her mouth she realized that that wasn't a whole lot better. If at all.  "Shit," she muttered.  "That's not what I meant either."

He gave her a sad smile then rapped the top of her car with his knuckles lightly.  "Well, I guess I'll see you around, Clarke."

Then he was walking away, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders hunched forward just enough for it to be noticeable.  Clarke watched him go with a sinking feeling in her stomach that she couldn't explain.

After all, they weren't even really friends.

 

The bottomless pit in her stomach stuck around for the rest of the evening no matter how hard Clarke tried to get rid of it.  She watched  _Pride & Prejudice_ (the 2005 version obviously because Matthew Mcfayden), tried to read a book, took a shower, painted her nails, and even took one of those stupid love quizzes in the back of  _Teen Vogue's_ most recent edition.

But we weren't going to talk about her result on that quiz.

Okay, fine.  Apparently she was _"_ pining" after someone.  Which was, naturally, absurd.  Because who was there to pine after? _  
_

And, no, it wasn't Bellamy.  We'd already covered this. _Clarke was not into Bellamy_.  Okay, that might have been a lie.  She definitely wanted to jump him but that was it.  She didn't like him as anything more than an attractive member of the opposite sex.  That was _it_.  Really.

An hour later she might have been starting to admit that that wasn't the case.

And then her phone chirped on her bedside table next to her.

Casually she reached over, expecting a text from a friend from school about hanging out or her boss asking her about something she'd inventoried a couple days ago.

It was neither.

In fact, it was from a number she didn't recognize.

She rolled over onto her stomach so she could see a bit better and called up the message.  Then froze.

_I'm sorry again, Princess.  I wont' force you to hang out with me again._

She stared at the message and it felt as if all the air had rushed out of her lungs.  Had she really acted so terribly towards him that she'd reduced the normally so cocky and confident Bellamy Blake to  _this?_

 _Jesus Christ_ , she thought.  She really had hurt him.  And she'd had no idea.

She flopped back on her bed and stared up at the ceiling.  She'd already been beginning to think that maybe she'd been lying to herself.  Did she like Bellamy as a friend?  Was that even possible?

She thought back over their lunches, the way she had actually started to look forward to them, the way that he was absolutely nothing like she'd been expecting.

"Oh, fucking hell," she said to her ceiling.

Then she pulled her phone back towards her and typed out a quick message.

**Bellamy, I'm so sorry.  I fucked up, I was wrong.  We are friends.  We are and I just couldn't see it.  I'm sorry.**

She sent it then stared down at her screen, typing out the next one carefully.

 **I'll see you at lunch** **tomorrow?**

She only hoped she would so she could begin the process of making it up to him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Starting off with just a little bit of angst to carry over from chapter five and then it's going to be a lot of fluff for a while.

Bellamy doesn't work the next day.

Either that or he's avoiding her.

Clarke keeps a keen eye on the bookstore whenever she can, scanning the register counter, the stockroom, everything and yet still no sign of him.

She'd be lying if she said she wasn't anxious about where he was, about whether or not he'd gotten her message, about whether or not he hated her.

This time yesterday Clarke wouldn't have cared if Bellamy Blake hated her.  She would have said,  _well I hate him, so whatever_ or  _I don't care what he thinks, he's nothing_.

But now she couldn't help but admit to herself that even from the beginning Bellamy had never been nothing.  She'd always been fascinated by him, even if in the beginning she truly had hated him.  And now that she had finally dropped the curtain of denial and allowed herself to realize that they were  _friends_ she'd said something so awful and terrible that she didn't know if she'd ever have the chance to make it up to him.

He was even better at projecting than she was.  She could see that now, even if she hadn't been able to before.  He projected a calm, collected, cocky, sarcastic, self-assured self that he hid behind and he had been just starting to lower that barrier for her and she'd taken advantage of it and spit right in his face.

 _God_ , she thought.

She waited anxiously for lunch.  She knew he wasn't going to be there.  Why would he be?  He obviously wasn't working today and there was no reason for him to come.  As far she she knew he had never gotten her texts or hadn't bothered to answer them, neither of which was a good sign.  He wouldn't be there.

 

Clarke had herself convinced of this as she started for the food court once her manager had told her to take her thirty-five.  She started out with fast, sure steps but now that she was getting closer and closer she was slowing.  She'd told herself that she could handle this.  She could do it.  She could weather him not being there, accept that she'd made a mistake, and try to move on.  But now that she was faced with the fact that she had to actually  _do it_ she was wavering.

God, how had she managed to be so wrong about him?

She swallowed and took a deep breath then turned toward the table.

Where Bellamy was sitting, holding a fry as if he'd forgotten about it, nose buried in that goddamn book.

It felt like someone had hit her in the stomach.  All of the air left her lungs.  She felt dizzy.  The backs of her knees went a bit weak.

And all of it in the best possible way.

 _Oh, no_ , she thought as she gathered her breath back.  She was even more screwed than she'd originally thought.

She walked over carefully, deliberately, more for herself than him.

He had already made all of his steps to the middle.  He came.  He waited.  He sat at their table.  Now it was her turn to fix what she said.  What she didn't mean.   _What wasn't true_.

He looked up when she puts down her tray and smiles and  _fuck_ Clarke's off balance.  It was like her admitting to herself that he'd become her friend took a damper off all those other feelings that she'd been stuffing down and stuffing down and now they were just spilling out of her.

Was she staring?  She was probably staring.   _Dammit, Clarke, stop staring_.

But he was still looking at her with that smile that probably could have dazzled the angels and Clarke practically fell into her chair.

"Hi," she said cautiously.

"Hey," he replied warmly.

"So...you got my text?"

His eyes flashed up to hers and his smile dropped off his face as he studied her.  "We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," he replied finally.

Clarke swallowed, got lost in the intensity of his eyes.  Those deep brown pools that seemed to change and swirl around the infinite black of his pupil.  She swallowed again.

"I do."

"Okay," he said simply, closing his book and leaning his forearms on it.  His eyes still hadn't left hers.  Clarke was starting to sweat.  This was worse than she'd been anticipating.  She hadn't expected it to be  _like this_.  Not at all.  But she should have.

Her feelings for Bellamy had always been extremes.  Hatred.  Fiery anger.  Lust.  Sexual frustration.

Because of course once she let herself like Bellamy the floodgates were going to open and everything she'd bottled up over the last two months was going to come pouring out.  And pouring out and pouring out.

But she wasn't allowed that.  Not yet, not now, probably not ever.

God help her, Bellamy Blake was a friend.  And she enjoyed these thirty-five minute lunch breaks and semi-awkward walks back to their respective stores more than she should have.  She wasn't about to fuck that up for good by letting him in on the crush she'd secretly been building since she'd started working at the mall.  Because surely that was all it was.  She'd known the guy for two months (not even really) and she barely knew anything about him.

 _That's fixable_ , a voice whispered in the back of her head and Clarke wanted to scream.

Because more than anything she wanted to know everything about Bellamy Blake.  She wanted to know his life story, what had made him interested in history, why he had decided to work at a bookstore, whether or not those freckles were limited just to his face, and most of all, why he had taken such an interest in her.

"I screwed up," she said honestly.  "And I'm sorry."

"I got your messages, you know," he said in a low voice.  "You don't have to do this.  I understand."  HIs eyes met hers and there was so much brutal honestly and trust there that Clarke was hit with the sudden feeling that this was too much, too fast.  She wanted to get up and walk away, maybe come back later and things could go back to the way they were.

But of course that wasn't going to be an option.  Not now.  Not that she'd gotten past that first wall of his defenses he wasn't going to slam them back up again.  But God help her she didn't understand why he'd done it for her, the girl who clearly didn't like him and even hated him at times, the one who had snapped at him at every possible chance, the one who had made it clear she wanted nothing to do with him.

Except now here they were.

"I need to actually say it," she told him, "to your face.  Or else I'll feel like a cheater and a coward."

He didn't say anything but she could see that he understood.  She heaved a deep breath.

"I don't think it'll be a surprise to you to know that I really didn't like you for a long time."

That earned her a smile and a small chuckled.  "You don't say?"

She laughed a little at that but pushed on.  "But at some point, and I don't know when, that started changing.  And yesterday, when you walked away and you just looked so...upset?  sad?  I don't know, but it  _hurt_.  It hurt me.  And I tried to tell myself that I was just being stupid, that the only reason I was upset was because I actually don't like hurting people.  But then you texted me and...I realized I was wrong.  We're friends."

"Glad to hear it, friend," he said with a smile, not at all mocking and then picked up another fry, popping it into his mouth.

Clarke stared.  "That's it?"

He shrugged.  "As long as you meant it."

"I did."

"Then that's it."

Clarke was dumbfounded.  Could it really be that easy?  Apparently it was, she decided, as Bellamy bit into his burger and flipped open the book again.

"So, why a bookstore?" she rushed out, eager to keep the conversation going, not ready to lose him to ancient Rome again.

He looked a bit shocked at the sudden change of topic but not altogether annoyed.  "I needed a job and...they were hiring.  Seemed better than McDonald's or something like that so I figured why not, you know?  And then I actually started working and I realized I loved it.  I don't read as much as I wish I did but I love being surrounded by books."

"It's great except for the coworkers, right?" she teased, flashing back to Henry and how he kept the store's jazz at practically earsplitting levels.

Bellamy ducked his head and laughed.  Clarke felt her cheeks pink.  "I may have told my manager that I can't stand him."

Clarke burst out laughing.  "Really?"

He gave a small and extremely adorable half-shrug.  "You think he's annoying from across the hallway?  Imagine how irritating it is to work with him.  The guy never shuts up."

Clarke smiled.  "That's one of the nice things about working for a smaller store, I guess," she mused.

"Yeah, aren't there just three of you?" he asked, taking a swig from the Sprite bottle next to the book.

She nodded. "Four, actually.  But we never work at the same time.  Just one of us and our manager."

"And is sketching all you do?" he asked nonchalantly.

"Mainly.  I mean, I can paint and I'm not terrible with pastels.  But drawing or sketching is my favorite."

He flashed her a smile.  "I'm terrible at all of the above.  You want to teach me?"

Clarke disguised the moment it took her to catch her breath by taking a bite out of her burrito.  "I'm not a very good teacher," she told him honestly.  "I've tried before but it comes really naturally to me so I'm not sure how to help people for whom it doesn't.  Does that make sense?"

He smiled again.  "Perfect."

"But I mean, if you're still interested in an in-depth study of the differences between moss green and forest green I might be able to help you there."

"How in-depth?"

Clarke choked on her next bite of burrito.

She had his full and undivided attention now and he was looking at him in a way that kind of made her want to remind him that they were in public.

Not of course that they'd be doing anything differently if they weren't because  _come on_ , that was never going to happen.  But still.  Knowing that there was a group of pre-pubescent girls who were probably here for a birthday party at Build-A-Bear a table over while Bellamy was looking at her  _like that_ made her a bit uncomfortable.

Her watch beeped, signally the end of her break.  Clarke stood suddenly and her chair scraped across the floor with a loud screech, startling Bellamy out of his stare.

As she slipped on her jacket she saw him shake his head and mutter something to himself as he slipped his book into his messenger bag and slung it over his shoulder.  For a reason that Clarke really didn't want to think about, that made her smile just a little to herself.

The walk back to the art store was quiet but companionable.  It wasn't silent because they were awkward or didn't know what to say to each other but instead because they just didn't  _have_ anything to say to each other.  Clarke decided she liked it.

As had become the norm, they stopped in front of the art store and Bellamy shoved his hands in his pockets, suddenly awkward again.  Clarke fought back another smile.  Awkward Bellamy was quickly becoming her favorite Bellamy and that was a recipe for disaster like nothing else.

"So, uh, my sister," he started, then paused.  "My sister is forcing me to go to some picnic thing she's throwing her a bunch of her friends this weekend as a sort of late July 4th get together?"

"Uh-huh," Clarke said, losing the battle against her smile.

"And it's basically just going to be me and a bunch of fifteen/sixteen year olds and I was hoping that you would be willing to sacrifice your Saturday afternoon to make sure I don't drown in teenagers who have just gone through puberty and discovered girls?  Please?"

Clarke couldn't help the smile now.  "Of course," she said immediately.  "I'd love to."

Bellamy looked a bit taken aback but that slow, easy smile that she was so mesmerized by slid across his face almost immediately.  "Great.  That's great.  Um, I should probably be getting home but I'll text you the details later?"

She nodded, still smiling.  "Yeah, that sounds great."  And she couldn't have been the only one who noticed the fondness that creeped into her voice.

He gave her one last nod, lingered for just a second, then turned and walked away.  She forced herself to not watch his retreating figure until it disappeared into the milling crowd and instead turned, almost running smack into her manager, who was leaning against the counter, her arms crossed over her chest, smirking.

"Barely even friends, huh?"

Clarke rolled her eyes.  "Please." 

Her manager just raised an eyebrow.  "Okay, so maybe I lied."

That earned her a laugh and a clap on the shoulder.  "Don't be afraid, Clarke.  You're young.   _Live."_ _  
_

Clarke gave her a funny look.  "I have no idea what you're talking about."

But that also might have been a bit of a lie.  Because maybe she had the faintest idea of what her manager was hinting at.  Just maybe.

"It was an invitation to a picnic," Clarke muttered.  "Not a wedding proposal."

"Sure," her manager said, throwing an apron at her.  "For today.  Now go get started on reorganizing the pastels in the back room."

Clarke spluttered.  Because as if.

But that didn't stop one errant thought from doing a victory loop in her head over and over as she threw the apron over her head and opened the door to the back room.

A picnic.  A picnic _with Bellamy_.  And his sister.  And a bunch of her friends.  But still.  It was something outside of their usual accepted mall interactions.  A sign that the tables were turning.

And damn if Clarke wasn't totally on board with that.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it's taken me this long to post this chapter. I've been completely swamped with finals and packing up all my stuff to go home for the summer. Hopefully you'll be getting much more frequent updates from here on out!

"Hey, so I was thinking," Clarke said around a bite of one of Bellamy's fries.  "That maybe I should meet your sister before this picnic thing?"

Bellamy's head shot up from his phone and he fixed her in an intense stare.  "Wait, are you serious?"

She shrugged.  "Yeah?"

She reached across the table again. He slapped her hand away. "I thought you hated these things?" he asked, a joking tone in his voice.

She shrugged again.  "I do."

"Then why are you eating all of them?"

She smiled.  "I never took you for the territorial type, Blake."

He grinned.  "You have no idea, Griffin."

Okay, so she could have done without that particular statement.  Because now she was thinking of things that she definitely should not have been thinking of.  Since, you know, they were friends and all.  Just friends.  That was it.

So why the hell was she thinking about how that possessiveness would translate to her?  About how he would put an arm around her if they went somewhere, maybe.  Or about how his dark skin would look next to her paleness.  Or how his lips would feel against hers.

 _Okay, Griffin_ , she told herself.   _That is_ definitely _enough of that_.

"You want to meet Octavia?" Bellamy was saying.  "You can meet Octavia."

"Wait, really?" She hadn't been expecting him to say yes that easily.

"Sure.  You were going to anyway."

Clarke grinned and, when he wasn't looking, stole another fry.  He shook his head, bemused, but smiled.

 

Bellamy had asked Clarke to the picnic two days ago.

Things between them had been escalating at a dizzying rate ever since.  She wasn't pretending not to like him anymore or even that he was just a casual acquaintance.  She knew it wasn't true.  Plus it had been hurting both of them.  She just hadn't realized it.

That still didn't mean they were anything more than friends who ate lunch together and had plans to hang out outside of work.  Clarke had been mentally preparing herself for the picnic since he'd asked.  She still wasn't ready.  And now here she was going to meet Bellamy's sister days ahead of schedule.

When Clarke had gotten home from work two days ago her mom had immediately picked up on her brightened mood.

"You look happy," Abby had commented and Clarke had frozen in the entryway, like a toddler caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

Except her hand wasn't in the cookie jar.  There was nothing wrong with making friends, right?  Right.

So then why did being friends with Bellamy feel so thrilling?

Clarke had just shrugged, trying to play it cool.  "I got invited to a picnic on Saturday," she'd said casually, hanging up her coat in the closet as she spoke more so that Abby wouldn't see the wild light in her eyes.

"Oh?  By who?"

"Someone I met at work."  She'd turned and faced the expectant look on her mother's face.  "His name's Bellamy."

"A guy?"

"You don't have to sound so shocked, Mom," Clarke had grumbled.  "It's not like I'm a social pariah or something."

Abby had cracked a smile at that and ruffled her daughter's hair.  "You're right.  Are you supposed to bring anything?  You want me to pick something up when I go grocery shopping tomorrow?"

Clarke felt panicked.  She'd been so overwhelmed with the initial offer that she hadn't even thought to ask.  "No, I don't think so."

"Okay.  Your father has to stay late at the office so it's just going to be the two of us for dinner.  What do you think: pizza or Chinese?"

And that had been that.

Except for the part where Abby had clearly told Jake behind Clarke's back.  And the part where they kept making pointed remarks about how Clarke was going to be  _out_ on Saturday.  And how Clarke was making new  _friends_.

And even though she'd never tell, she kind of liked it.

 

 

Bellamy got off his shift earlier than Clarke did that afternoon so 2:30 brought him into the art store, looking awkward and out-of-place yet still determined.  He smiled at Clarke's manager who returned the action with a wide grin.

Clarke was toward the back of the store organizing their sketchbook offerings (which a rowdy group of middle schoolers had fucked up earlier) when he found her and tapped her on the shoulder.

She spun, surprised, and flattened herself against the wall in shock when she found herself just inches away from Bellamy Blake.

"Jesus, Bellamy," she said, pressing a hand against her heart.  Her pulse was thundering in her ears.  She told herself that it was because he had surprised her and not because he was literally  _this close_ to her and smelled something delicious.  "You scared the shit out of me."

He smiled sheepishly.  Her heart did a strange jumping dance.  Jesus Christ this was getting out of hand.

"Sorry," he said.  "You seemed...engrossed."  He gestured to the massive armload of sketchbooks she was holding.

She smiled.  "What's up?"

"You still want to meet Octavia?"

"Yes?"

"I'm giving you a way out.  You can say no.  I won't be bothered."

"Why would I want a way out?"

He grinned.  "You'll see tonight."

Her brows furrowed.  "Wait, what?  Tonight?"

"Yeah.  When you come over for dinner."  He flashed her a smile.  "I'll text you the address?  Six-thirty okay?"

"Yeah, sure," she stammered.

"Great.  See you then, princess."  He gave her one last smile before turning and walking out, nodding to her manager, who was watching him with a slight smile curling on her lip.

Clarke leaned against the wall.  "Don't even say it," she said crossly.

Her manager grinned.  "I didn't say anything."

 

The Blakes lived in a spectacularly normal two-story blue house with a nice looking porch and a neatly cut lawn.

It looked exactly like every other house on the block.  But something about it was different.

Bellamy lived there.

(and, yes, Clarke realized that she was being ridiculous, so no, she didn't need you to tell her, thank you very much).

Her parents had practically thrown her out the door when she'd told them she'd been invited over for dinner (yes, pushy much) and so now here she was, too afraid to pull into the driveway because that felt too familiar, hovering on the side of the street, trying to gather her courage.

After giving herself a stern talking to, she unclicked her seatbelt and opened the door.  She could do this.  She had this.

She rang the doorbell.

She didn't have this.

The door was wrenched open by a dark-haired guy with Bellamy's eyes.

The girl grinned, pushed the door open and yelled over her shoulder, "Bell, she's here!"  Then she turned back to Clarke just in time for Bellamy to skid into the entryway on stockinged feet.  "I'm Octavia," she said, holding out a hand.  "You must be Clarke."

"That's me," Clarke replied, shaking Octavia's hand.

Next to his sister, Bellamy self-consciously ran a hand through his hair.  "Hey."

She smiled back.  "Hey," she said, her voice coming out a bit softer than she had been intending.

She and Bellamy stared at each other for a beat longer before he cleared his throat and jabbed a finger over his shoulder.  "Uh, the kitchen's that way."

"Right.  The kitchen."

Octavia snorted.  Bellamy pushed her into a wall.  Clarke laughed.

"It's just going to be the three of us," Bellamy told Clarke, gesturing for her to sit on one of the three bar stools pulled up to the kitchen island.  Octavia hopped up onto the one next to her.  "You want something to drink?"

"Water's fine, thanks."

"Ice?"

"Just a little."

He slid the glass in front of her.

"Our mom works nights at a diner in town," Octavia explained as Bellamy filled up a pot with water.

"I remember Bellamy mentioning that," Clarke added and Octavia smiled.  "You cook?" she asked him.

He turned on the stove and the only sound was the  _click click_ of the pilot light before the flame caught.  He turned and gave her a wounded look that said,  _how little you think of me.  Of course I do_.

"Bell's a great cook," Octavia gushed.

He rolled his eyes.  "Don't raise her standards too high, O," he said, "it's just spaghetti."

Clarke smiled.  "I love spaghetti."

Another long prolonged moment of eye contact.  Octavia snickered.  Clarke looked down.

"So how do you know my brother?"

Bellamy opened the fridge door with what was definitely too much gusto, making the jars of condiments on the door rattle.

 

Bellamy _was_ a good cook.  In fact, his spaghetti was some of the best she'd ever had.

She told him as much.  He dropped his fork with a loud  _clang_ as his cheeks turned bright red.  Octavia laughed so hard she almost fell out of her chair.

Overall, it was a good dinner.  The food was incredible, the company excellent, and the conversation lively.  Clarke's nervousness had drained away somewhere around her second or third bite of pasta.  This felt exactly like their lunches.

Except different.

Because they weren't in a mall surrounded by hundreds of strangers.  And they were in Bellamy's dining room eating spaghetti (and garlic bread, she couldn't forget the fantastic garlic bread).  And Bellamy's sister was there, watching them with a prideful look akin to that of a mother sending her children off to their first day of kindergarten.

Octavia also was not what Clarke had been expecting.  Yeah, sure, she was a bit on the louder side and had a lot of energy, especially when compared to her significantly calmer and more laid-back brother, but she also wasn't nearly as rambunctious as Bellamy had led Clarke to believe.  She was fun.  Clarke liked her.

"You want to stay for dessert?" Bellamy asked as Clarke put down her fork after her last bite.  "It won't be very fancy.  Just whatever ice cream I can dig out of the fridge...?"

His voice trailed off.  Clarke could hear the note of hopefulness in his voice.  She smiled.

"I'd like that a lot."

He was clearly fighting back a smile as he said, "Good.  I'll just go wash dishes and then I'll get those served up."

Clarke stood abruptly, picking up her own plate before he could.  "I'll help you."

He offered her a sheepish smile and led her back into the kitchen.  Octavia watched them go, a smirk on her face that Clarke tried not to read too much into.

They washed dishes in a companionable silence.  Bellamy washed while she dried, their elbows brushing occasionally.

"Thank you for coming," he said softly after a moment.

Clarke smiled down at the dish towel patterned with starfish.  "You didn't give me much of a choice."

He chuckled.  "Still."

"Of course," she replied after a beat. "Thank you for inviting me."

"Of course," he replied, smiling cheekily.

She made the mistake of looking at him and that smile that lit up his face.  She returned it automatically.  He flicked water in her direction.

Clarke froze.  "You didn't," she said.

He grinned ever wider.  "I did."

She splashed water back.  He reciprocated.

"You're going down, Blake."

"Oh, am I?  I think  _you're_ the going down, princess."

She grabbed one of their cleaned and dried water glasses from dinner, filled it, and slung it in his direction, soaking the front of his shirt.  This time Bellamy was the one who froze.

"Jesus, Clarke," was all he managed, looking down.

She pressed a fist to her mouth but not even that was enough to stifle the laughter bubbling out of her throat.

"That's it," he muttered, pulling out the extendable faucet and turning it on, dousing her thoroughly.  She gasped, then snapped out of her daze and wrestled him for it.

"Bell?" Octavia called from the dining room. "Do you want me to--holy shit."

Clarke and Bellamy froze, turning towards Octavia.  They were both soaked, hair plastered to their heads.  Bellamy had the presence of mind to turn off the tap.

"And you call me immature," Octavia muttered before opening the freezer and grabbing a tub of ice cream.  "I'm going to go to my room before you two manage to burn the whole house down.  Nice meeting you, Clarke."

"You, too!" Clarke called after her retreating form.

It wasn't until they heard the quiet  _snap_ of Octavia's door closing upstairs that they burst into laughter.  Clarke sunk to the floor, unable to support herself, and the _squelch_ of her wet pants against her legs just doubled her over again.

"What do you say to a change of clothes?" Bellamy wheezed when he finally managed to stop laughing.  "I'll throw yours in the dryer."

"I'd say that sounds great."

He grinned again and held out a hand.  She took it and let him pull her to her feet.

"My room's just upstairs."  The statement framed a silent question and Clarke felt herself flush

"If I didn't know any better, Bellamy Blake," she said as they mounted the stairs.  "I'd say getting me into your room has been your plan all along."

He threw her another one of those dazzling smiles.  "Well, Clarke Griffin, you never know."

That stopped her.  She watched him leap up the next couple of stairs before turning around to see her waiting below.

"You coming?"

"Yeah, yeah, sorry."

He grinned and she swayed a little.

Oh, yeah.  She was in  _way way_ over her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come cry with me on [Tumblr?](http://maytheymeeetagain.tumblr.com)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke smiled. “It’s not Monday if my mom hasn’t tried to set me up with one of her friends’ kids. You get used to it.”  
> “Has she succeeded?”  
> “At what?” she asked curiously, looking over at him. Bellamy was staring dutifully straight ahead like his life depended on it.  
> “In setting you up with one of them.”  
> “Bellamy Blake, is that your extremely roundabout way of asking me if I’m dating anyone?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so so sorry that this update is coming to you all so late. I hope I still have some readers out there and I would like to thank each and every one of you who has asked about this fic and sent me such lovely messages/reviews about it and my writing in general. You guys really keep me going and you deserve all the god stars.
> 
> This chapter is a bit shorter than I wanted it to be but it's late and I need to get some sleep but I wanted to put this up for you guys. Hopefully the next few will be longer.

As Clarke pulled into the parking lot of their local park/campground combo, she realized that her hands were sweating.

Bellamy had originally planned on coming to pick her up but the idea of him sitting across from her smiling parents in her living room made her want to crawl under her covers and never come out.  So instead she’d violently insisted that she’d rather drive herself and so finally, sighing, he’d given her the address and told her to be there at eleven.

The clock on her dashboard was blinking 10:58 as she cast a look over at the warming bottles of soda in her passenger seat that she’d bought on impulse the night before.

“You got this, Clarke,” she muttered under her breath.  “You _got this.”_

She forced a deep breath and took her keys out of the ignition, opening the door and grabbing the soda.  Somehow she managed to not trip herself on the uneven and cracked pavement of the parking lot and then much too soon her feet were crunching over the gravel of the trail to the “gazebo,” which was more just five pieces of wood slapped together under a roof than anything quite so fancy.

Octavia was sitting on a picnic bench, dark brown hair glinting under the light, looking way too much like a model from a shampoo commercial for Clarke’s liking, talking to a group of kids Clarke didn’t recognize.  But then, of course, that was how this afternoon was going to go.  That was why she was there in the first place.  Because these were Octavia’s friends that Bellamy had been forced into chaperoning.  And she was there to keep him company.

And damn it, why did that task seem so daunting?

Clarke’s face flushed when she found Bellamy’s familiar curls in the crowd, head thrown back in laughter as he clapped an older looking guy with a buzz cut on the shoulder.

Clarke froze.

“Clarke!”

Octavia had spotted her and was waving at her frantically.  And Bellamy.  Well, Bellamy’s face was alight with something that scared her a little bit.  He was smiling, but not in a way that she’d ever seen before.  It was an easy smile, one that promised something, one that screamed of familiarity.

She forced herself to take another step forward and then another.  Bellamy was still smiling at her, the guy he’d been talking to before forgotten.

“Hey,” he said, as soon as she was within speaking distance.

Clarke felt a smile spread across her face.  “Hey,” she responded, surprised by the easiness with which the word came out.

“You find the place okay?” he asked.

She threw him a _please_ look.  “You’re not the only one who grew up in this town, Bell.  I know where the park is.”

Bellamy chuckled and looked down, kicking at the pavement with the toe of his shoe.  “Right.  Sorry.”  He looked up and stared her straight in the eye, unabashedly.

Clarke swallowed as she felt her cheeks redden.  “I brought soda?” She held it out like an offering and he smiled again.

“Thanks.  Yo, O!  Catch!”  He threw it and his sister caught it easily.

“Weak throw, Bell!” she yelled back.  He flipped her off.  The group of her friends tittered.

“What can I get you, Clarke?” Bellamy asked when he turned back to her.

She smiled.  “I’m easy.  Whatever you have is fine.”

 

Clarke had been nervous about the picnic since Bellamy had asked her to go.  But all of her concerns had been unfounded.

Octavia’s friends were easy to talk to and friendly once she’d been introduced (“this is Bell’s _friend_ , Clarke,” Octavia had said, putting an undue amount of emphasis on the word ‘friend’ that had made Bellamy’s cheeks redden under his dark complexion and Clarke cough).  She’d spent most of her time talking to Bellamy and the guy he’d been conversing with when she’d arrived, Miller, and Miller’s boyfriend, Monty.

Octavia had separated from the main group to flirt with a handsome guy named Atom with perfect hair and a chiseled face.  Clarke had practically had to drag Bellamy back into his chair when he saw.

“Leave her alone,” Clarke had hissed into his ear while he glared at Atom brushing a piece of his sister’s hair behind her ear.  “She can make her own decisions.”

“She’s too young,” Bellamy bit out, his eyes narrowing again.

Clarke rolled her eyes and whacked him.  “Oh, calm down.”

Bellamy deflated slightly, turning back towards her to give her a hurt look.  Clarke just raised her eyebrows.

“Fine,” he mumbled.

Miller barked out a laugh.

“What the hell are you laughing about?” Bellamy muttered.  Miller just smiled.

Monty clapped her on the back and said, “That’s it.  We’re never letting go of you.”

Clarke looked between the two of them, eyebrows knitting together.  “What?  Why?”

“Someone who can get Bellamy to tone down the hyper-brother instincts is definitely a keeper,” Miller replied around a wide smile, ducking to avoid Bellamy’s swinging arm.  His head came back up laughing.  “You can’t deny it, man, you’re out of control.”

Bellamy rolled his eyes.  Clarke nudged his shoulder with hers.  He looked over.  She smiled.  “At least Henry’s not here,” she said, in an attempt to get him to smile.

He did, bursting out laughing.  “And his sweater vests?”

Clarke grinned.  “Exactly.”

“Bellamy!” Octavia yelled from where she’d rejoined her friends, Atom’s arm slung around her shoulder.  “You forgot the other cooler in the car!”

Bellamy turned around yelled back, “then you go get it!”

“Your car, big brother.  You’re the one with the keys.  Take Clarke!”  She winked and turned back to her friends.

Bellamy pushed himself up, groaning.  “What Octavia asks, Octavia gets,” he muttered.  “Clarke?”

“Your sister is not nearly as transparent as she thinks she is,” Clarke told him as she swung a leg out from under the picnic table.

Bellamy rolled his eyes.  “Oh, she’s not trying to be transparent.”

She heard Monty and Miller snicker but chose to ignore them.  So did Bellamy but his face was redder than before.  The thought made her stomach twist a little.

“I didn’t see your car on the way in,” Clarke said as they started down the path back to the lot.

“It’s parked all the way at the back of the parking lot,” Bellamy said after a small beat.  “In a corner.  A hidden one.”

Clarke laughed.  “Oh, Octavia thinks she’s good, doesn’t she?”

Bellamy coughed.  Clarke laughed again.  “This really isn’t funny, you know,” he said, sounding hurt.

Clarke smiled.  “It’s not Monday if my mom hasn’t tried to set me up with one of her friends’ kids.  You get used to it.”

“Has she succeeded?”

“At what?” she asked curiously, looking over at him.  Bellamy was staring dutifully straight ahead like his life depended on it.

“In setting you up with one of them.”

“Bellamy Blake, is that your extremely roundabout way of asking me if I’m dating anyone?”

He cleared his throat.  “Or if you have in the past.”

Clarke smiled again.  “I have dated in the past.  None of my mom’s set-ups, though.”

His car was coming into view now.  She heard the jangle of his keys as he took them from his pocket.  The taillights flashed.  He had a hand on the trunk then turned back to her, leaning against the bumper, arms crossed.

“And now?” he asked, his voice more serious than she would have intended.

Clarke swallowed again.  “Pushy pushy, Blake.”  She leaned agains the bumper, mimicking his posture.  “What about you?  You seeing anyone?”

“I asked you first.”  His voice was low, almost husky.  A thrill went though her.

“I’m not,” she said finally.

He flashed her a wide grin that made her go a bit weak in the knees ( _Jesus fuck, Griffin_ , she chastised herself).  “Me, neither.”

“Look at us, a couple of lonely teenagers,” Clarke said slowly, finding herself unable to look away from his face.

His grin widened.  “I don’t know if I’d call myself lonely.”

“No?” Her voice sounded choked.  She was beyond caring.

He slid a bit closer.  Clarke leaned in.  She found herself mesmerized by the collection of freckles on his nose and cheeks.  From far away they just looked like one giant mass but up close she could see the intricate lines that separated them from each other.  She didn’t want to look at Bellamy’s eyes.  She was afraid of where they might be focused.

“Nah,” he said quietly.

He was so close that she could feel the air his words set into motion against her lips.  She fought the urge to lick them.

“And why’s that?” she asked finally.

He seemed even closer.  She knew that barely a two minutes walk away his sister and her friends were getting drunk on fun, soda, and overcooked hot dogs.  They’d been gone for much longer than was necessary to retrieve a cooler from Bellamy’s car and surely someone had noticed.  Someone was bound to come looking for them, if only to make sure they hadn’t been mauled by a rogue raccoon.

Clarke suppressed the sudden desire to tell Bellamy this.  God help her but she didn’t want to ruin the moment.

Even though she had no idea what this moment even was.  Or if she wanted it to continue.

Okay, that was a lie.  She did.  She really really did.

What she didn’t want was to think about what that meant.  There was a time for that and it wasn’t when Bellamy Blake was this close to her, that dangerous tone in his voice.

“I met this pretty cool chick at the mall.  How teen movie right?”

Clarke laughed and he smiled.  Her eyes might have gone right to how his lips curved around his too-white teeth.  _Might_.

Bellamy’s eyes were searching hers.  Her mouth was dry.  Her hands were sweating again.

He was leaning in.

She stopped breathing.

And then one of Octavia’s friends, whose name Clarke had forgotten the name of, appeared behind them.

“Hey, Bellamy?”

Bellamy wrenched himself away from Clarke.

“Hey, Jasper, what’s up?” There was a false cheeriness in his voice, meant to convey _this is fine, everything is fine_ that Clarke hoped Jasper couldn’t see through.

“Octavia’s looking for you.”

“Right,” Bellamy said, swinging the trunk open with one smooth motion and grabbing the cooler.  “Tell her we’ll be right there.  Oh, and Jasper?”

The other boy raised an eyebrow.

“If you tell my sister about what you just saw I swear to God I’ll tell your parents about all the week you smoke.”

Jasper paled.  “I saw nothing,” he said immediately, miming zipping his lips shut.

Bellamy smiled.  “Good man.”  He closed the trunk.  “Let’s go, Clarke.”

And just like that everything was back to normal.

Except for Clarke, that was.

For the rest of the afternoon she couldn’t help by micro-analyze everything Bellamy did.  Was he looking at her differently?  Was his smile wider when he was talking to her?  Had that sparkle in his eye been there before?  Did that hug linger longer than it should have?

It wasn’t until she was on her way home later that evening, stopped at a light that she let her head thunk forward onto her steering wheel.

Bellamy Blake was quickly becoming a problem.  But not for any of the reasons that Clarke had been expecting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come cry with me on [Tumblr?](http://maytheymeeetagain.tumblr.com)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was time to admit to herself that in those few precious seconds when Bellamy had been looking at her like that, with a bottomless fire burning in his eyes, before Jasper had so cruelly interrupted, she wanted nothing more than to grab him by the collar of his shirt and kiss him senseless.

Clarke spent the day after the picnic, Sunday, aimlessly wandering around her house, thinking over the incident in the parking lot.

 _Maybe it was an accident,_ she thought while she took a shower that morning, rinsing the shampoo out of her hair.  _But he seemed to know what he was doing_ , she argued back later while she was drying her hair.  _But what even was going to happen?_ the more logical side of her brain demanded while she picked over her lunch, blocking out her parents’ careful discussion about what was going to be going on at their respective workplaces that week.

And honestly that last one really was the question.  What was happening in the parking lot?  Was Bellamy about to kiss her like she thought?  But what was the alternative?  Most people didn’t feel the need to get that close to another person’s face unless they were going to kiss them.

Clarke stifled a groan and hoped her parents hadn’t heard.  Luckily they seemed too interested in Jake’s current description of the bridge his team was mocking up to notice their daughter’s evident discomfort.  Clarke wanted to rip her hair out.

This whole business had been much easier when she just hated him.

That was the other question, she decided later as she collapsed backwards onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling.  What were her feelings for Bellamy Blake?  Just friendly?  Surely not.  Because it was time to admit to herself that in those few precious seconds when Bellamy had been looking at her like _that_ , with a bottomless fire burning in his eyes, before Jasper had so cruelly interrupted, she wanted nothing more than to grab him by the collar of his shirt and kiss him senseless.

Those weren’t feelings that Clarke usually had for her friends.

There was no denying that to some extent she had always been _attracted_ to Bellamy.  There had always been the sweating of the palms, erratic breathing, the jump in her chest when he smiled sideways at her in that way that was just so purely him.  But she’d always chalked it up to lust, nothing more.  Because it couldn’t have been anything more.  Because back that Clarke didn’t even like Bellamy as a friend.

But now that her feelings in that regard had shifted, didn’t it mean that it might be time to come clean to herself about the rest of her feelings?  She rolled over and buried her head in her pillows, squeezing her eyes shut.

 _Maybe tomorrow_ , she promised herself.  It was too much to think of at the moment.  Especially with Bellamy’s chocolate brown eyes imprinted on the back of her eyelids, the smell of him seemingly everywhere, the low timbre of his voice echoing in her ears.

 

There was a nervous pit of energy in Clarke’s stomach the next morning as she drove to work.  She was opening again which, thank God, meant a bit of quiet time to herself before her manager walked in.  But time for what?  Time to think about Bellamy?  Or time to devote to _not_ thinking about Bellamy?

Her parents had asked how the picnic was on Saturday night when she’d returned and she’s answered with a quick “good, I had fun” before rocketing up the stairs and into her room.  She didn’t need to see the confused look they shared to know what it looked like.  It was one that she’d seen all too many times before.

Bellamy strolled in around seven-thirty, his ever-present cockiness rolling off him in waves.  Clarke forced herself to look away, focusing instead on the impeccable display of pastels she’d set out earlier.  She didn’t want to watch him look over at her.

At least, that’s what she told herself.  The real truth of it was that she didn’t want to know if he looked over or not.  She was too petrified of the answer being no.

It was a busy day which was good.  The near-constant stream of customers kept her mind busy and meant her manager didn’t have time to grill her about Saturday.  Instead she just pretended to not notice the knowing looks that were being directed towards her and tried not to search the store across the hall for Bellamy.

She succeeded moderately well at one and did abysmally with the other.

Bellamy was laughing with his coworkers, slapping one on the back as they straightened a display of new releases.  Clarke tried to ignore the coiling mass of jealously in her stomach.  At one point Bellamy looked up and their eyes locked and it was like a jolt of electricity went through her.  She quickly looked away and cleared her throat, bending down behind the counter to breathe.

At ten-thirty, Bellamy ran out of the store, still wearing his name tag, almost tripping over an untied shoelace.  Clarke watched him go, mouth slightly agape, momentarily forgetting where she was, possessed by the urge to chase after him.

It was only when a middle-aged woman with a pixie cut stalked up to the counter to demand to know why the lime green thread wasn’t on sale with the rest of the colors, that she snapped back into herself.

“Because it’s a newer color,” she stammered out, eyes flickering over to the storefront of the bookstore.  The storefront that Bellamy no longer was a part of.  “The ones that are on sale are all older.  We’re trying to clear out our inventory.”

The woman snorted and wandered back over to the display.  Clarke breathed out.

 _It’s fine, Clarke_ , she told herself.  _Fine_.  _It can’t be about you.  That makes no sense._

But the longer into her shift that she waded, the longer Bellamy was gone, the more she started to question that logic.  It was possible that he’d made a mistake on Saturday, that he hand’t actually wanted things to go there between them, and that now that they had, he felt awkward and uncomfortable with where their relationship was going.

She chewed her lip anxiously as she untied her apron and left for lunch, fingering the phone in the pocket of her jeans.

It wasn’t until she was sitting alone at their lunch table that she allowed herself to take it out, staring at the screen before calling up his contact and pressing call.

It rang.  And rang and rang.  And just when she thought it was going to go to voicemail, his familiar voice came down the line.

“Hello?”

Suddenly it felt like her vocal cords had been frozen.  With an immense amount of effort she cleared her throat and said, “Hey, Bellamy, it’s Clarke.”

“Hey!” came his response, warmer than she would have thought, and slightly relieved.  “I’m so glad you called.”

“Yeah?” she asked, hopeful, clutching the phone tighter.

“Yeah.  I’m, uh, not going to be able to make it to lunch today.” His voice was sheepish, apologetic.

Despite herself, Clarke laughed a little.  “Yeah, I figured.   I’m at the table.  Alone,” she added.

“Is it lunchtime already?  _Fuck_.”

“I, uh, well, I’m calling to apologize.”

There was silence on the other side of the line.

“For what?” his voice was suspicious.

“For Saturday.”  More silence.  She pressed on.  “I didn’t want things to get awkward between us.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“The parking lot?” she offered feebly.  _When you almost kissed me?_

He sighed, the noise an angry hissing that flew down the line into her ear.  “Right.  The parking lot.”  He paused.  “Um.  I don’t feel awkward about it.  Do you?”

“No,” she said, probably too quickly.

“Then why would you think I…” he trailed off.  “You saw me run out earlier didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit.  Sorry, it’s just that Octavia fell down the stairs.  The doctors think she might have broken her arm in a couple places.  I’m at the hospital with her now.  Our mom’s at work,” he offered, “so I’m the only one who could be here for her.”

“Oh,” Clarke said, relief flooding through her body and probably also her voice.  _“Oh.”_

He laughed and she could practically hear his smile.  “Yeah.”

A companionable silence stretched between them.

“You working tomorrow?” he asked casually.

“Yes.  But not Wednesday.”

“Funny, neither am I.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Do you want to go to a movie with me?”

Clarke was practically grinning into the phone as she replied, “yeah, of course” like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

And in a way, she guessed it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come cry with me on [Tumblr?](http://maytheymeeetagain.tumblr.com)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even if she’d had a loaded gun pointed at her head, Clarke couldn’t have explained what happened next. Her mind tripped over itself as she stared decidedly forward at the flashing colors on the screen, taking in none of it, as the rest of Bellamy’s fingers wound through hers, at an almost glacial pace until their palms pressed together, fingers tightly woven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m totally aware that it’s been about 900 years since I updated this. Hopefully you still remember what happened. But I come bearing awkward yet cute movie dates as penance for my prolonged absence. Updates should be a lot faster from here on out.

Despite her best attempts to dissuade him, Bellamy insisted on picking her up and driving her to the movie, claiming “you’ve met my family, I want to meet yours.”

Clarke could think of very few things that she wanted less than Bellamy in her foyer, shaking hands with her father, both of them beaming, while she and her mother watched from the sidelines. Abby kept shooting furtive and knowing glances at Clarke. Clarke’s hands were sweating.

Bellamy turned to her then and smiled that smile that made it feel like her stomach was dropping ten stories and asked, “Should we get going?”

She nodded, reaching for her coat, draped over the mantle where she’d left it earlier when she’d tried to hustle them out the door as soon as she’d arrived (an excellent plan that had been foiled by her father) and managed a fast goodbye to her parents before practically shoving Bellamy out the door and closing it sharply behind her.

They spent the drive to the movie theater in companionable silence, and didn’t speak again until Bellamy forced his way in front of Clarke at the box office to pay for both their tickets.

“Then I’m buying concessions,” she grouched as they pulled open the doors to the lobby.

Bellamy tried and failed to hide his smile. “Sure thing, princess,” is all he said, a smirk all too evident in his voice.

Though he did let her, asking for a medium popcorn with butter and small bottle of water, then stepping back to watch the loop of trailer playing on the screens above concessions as Clarke paid.

“Thank you,” she said to him as they walked to their auditorium.

He studied her, mouth open as if he was going to say something, then closed it. “Of course,” is all he said simply, holding the door open for her.

She chose seats halfway up the auditorium, right in the middle under the projector and sat. Bellamy followed, setting the popcorn between them and cracking open his water, taking a sip.

Suddenly everything was silent and awkward.

 _Friends went to movies together, right?_ Clarke thought to herself, forcing herself not to steal a glance at Bellamy out of the corner of her eye, if only to evaluate how he might have been feeling about the whole thing.

The lights going down for the start of the previews was a blessed relief. Clarke grabbed a handful of popcorn, resting it on the napkin she’d set in her lap.

The movie itself was captivating, and it sucked her in from the start. She had almost forgotten that Bellamy was there and she certainly wasn’t thinking about how this whole thing felt like a date (except she’d bought the popcorn, thank you very much) and how his arm was at most inches from hers, radiating heat that she thought she could feel, even through the sleeve of her hoodie.

That’s why, when she reached blindly into the popcorn bag and her fingers hit something warm and soft and definitely not popcorn, she froze.

Bellamy coughed.

It was as though Clarke had lost all control of her hand. Her fingers stayed there, lying half over Bellamy’s, fingertips just brushing the popcorn she had been searching for.

She sucked in a breath as his hand twitched under hers. One of his fingers slid along hers and she was oh so glad that it was dark in the theater because her whole body was probably eight shades of red and if that wasn’t embarrassing she didn’t know what.

She withdrew her hand slowly, all to aware of how their pinky fingers were hooked together, and of how Bellamy’s hand followed hers out of the bag, at a safe distance but still there, fingers still wrapped around each other.

Even if she’d had a loaded gun pointed at her head, Clarke couldn’t have explained what happened next. Her mind tripped over itself as she stared decidedly forward at the flashing colors on the screen, taking in none of it, as the rest of Bellamy’s fingers wound through hers, at an almost glacial pace until their palms pressed together, fingers tightly woven.

And Clarke Griffin was holding hands with her platonic movie date. And God help her she had no idea how she got here.

But she did know that Bellamy’s hand was warm in hers, and that she definitely wasn’t the only one with sweaty palms.

But that wasn’t the most important part. No, the most important part was that she wasn’t planning on letting go.

She didn’t let go. And against all the odds, neither did he. Their fingers stayed intertwined on the armrest between them for the rest of the movie and although she tried, Clarke couldn’t ignore the fervor of butterflies that had erupted in the pit of her stomach.

As the credits rolled she took a deep breath and held it, subtly watching Bellamy out of the corner of her eye. A muscle twitched in his jaw. Clarke swallowed. They were still holding hands.

“Do you like watching all the credits?” His voice was so low she almost didn’t hear him.

She swallowed again. “Not usually,” she said after a long pause.

She couldn’t be sure but he almost looked disappointed. “Do you need to be home for dinner?”

She didn’t even want to think about what that was code for. “Probably,” she said, though it was the furtherest from the truth.

He nodded and slid slowly slid his fingers from hers, picking up the half-full popcorn bag and his now empty bottle of water. Clarke followed, flexing her fingers and smoothing out her shirt. She followed him out of the row, mind spinning in a million directions.

Had he been trying to ask her out to dinner? Should she have said yes? Was it too late to change her mind?

There was more silence as they left the theater and walked to Bellamy’s car. But it wasn’t awkward, more born of having nothing to say than anything. She was glad that he drove a stick shift because otherwise she would have been tempted to reach over and pick up his hand again.

She wasn’t sure if that was a bad thing or not.

The drive back to her house felt simultaneously too long and too short.

He pulled into her driveway carefully and put the car in park, though his left hand stayed on the steering wheel and he was still staring determinedly out the windshield.

“Thank you,” she said, more to break the silence than anything.

He smiled. “I should be thanking you, I think. Popcorn is expensive.”

Clarke laughed. He smiled wider. Her stomach dropped out.

 _Fucked_ , she thought. _You are so completely and totally fucked._

“Have fun?” he asked, looking at her sideways.

Now it was her time to smile widely. “Absolutely.”

He nodded. His hand flexed on the gear shift. “Good.”

“We should do it again sometime. Hang out,” she added quickly when he cast her a confused look. “You know outside of work and your sister’s events that you have to chaperone.”

“Definitely,” he said immediately and for some reason that made her blush.

A long pause.

“Anyway,” Clarke said slowly, reaching for the door handle. “I’ll see you at work?”

“Definitely,” he repeated.

She nodded. He smiled.

Then he was leaning forward and Clarke was frozen in her seat. His lips pressed delicately against her cheek, which she was sure was flaming hot, for seven long seconds (yes, she counted all right, sue her), before he was pulling away, looking slightly sheepish but still smiling.

“Bye, Clarke.”

She pulled on the door handle, stepping out.

“Bye, Bellamy,” she said, slightly dazed, before closing the door.

He reversed out of the driveway, giving her a mock salute then pulled away, leaving Clarke standing in the middle of her driveway with a flushed face and a stomach full of butterflies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come cry with me on [Tumblr?](http://maytheymeeetagain.tumblr.com)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How was work?” she asked him as he settled down on the bench next to her.  
> He turned, grinning, and there were pieces of hair reaching across his forehead that she ached to brush away. “Fine, honey, how was your day?”  
> She choked.  
> “What?” he demanded, eyes wide in mock shock. “I thought we were doing like this 50s housewife role play thing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is back and in business! I’ve struggled a lot over the last four or five months about whether or not I wanted to bring back this story, partly because it’s been so long since I updated but mostly because my writing has changed so much since I started writing this fic. But in the end, the fact that it was my first and I hate leaving things unfinished won out. This version of Bellamy and Clarke is going to get an ending and I’m super excited to be back in this world again. That said, my writing has changed and as a result the tone of this story might feel a bit different and the characterization a bit different. I’m going to try and avoid that as much as possible but I don’t know how much I can avoid it.

He’d kissed her.  He’d kissed her cheek and now Clarke Griffin knew what Bellamy Blake’s lips felt like.  They were soft, maybe a little chapped, but full, and warm, and now she couldn’t stop thinking about what they’d feel like pressed against her own.

This was a first.

Clarke had had her fair share of stupid daydreams and teenage crushes on boys and girls, but it had never felt like this, like there was a roiling wave of crawling insects battling against the insides of her stomach every time she thought about Bellamy’s smile or the dark rich brown color of his eyes.  Umber, maybe, or brunette.  Perhaps hickory.  She was too far gone to even pretend that she was ashamed of looking up “shades of brown” on Google at two AM when she couldn’t sleep.

She still heard the ghost of his “definitely” when she rolled over in bed, feeling restless and hot despite the fact that the weather had yet to make its desperate bid for stifling temperatures.

He had asked her out and then he’d taken her out, bought her ticket, and  _ kissed  _ her.

Clarke was at war with herself the entire drive to work two days later.  She wanted to know which shirt he’d be wearing that day, and wanted to guess whether or not he’d brushed his hair.  She wanted to check for sure, up close, exactly what color of brown his eyes were, see the dimples pressed into his cheeks when he laughed, and try to pretend even for a second that she wasn’t head over heels for him.

She just barely avoided looking into the bookstore, not wanting to know if he was there, if he was watching her, if their movie date (was it even a date?) had had as much of an effect on him as it had on her.  She wasn’t even sure if she wanted the answer to that question to be yes or no.

“How were your days off?” was her manager’s first question as she pulled her apron over her head and tied it behind her back.

Clarke froze.  “Fine,” she said stiffly.  “Why do you ask?”

Her manager slanted a confused look her way.  “Call it curiosity.”  She made a note on the paper she was skimming and added, “you’re cagey today.”

Clarke let out a shakey breath.  “Sorry.”

“Just don’t be rude to the customers,” was all she got in response and Clarke nodded.

Bellamy appeared halfway through her shift.  She was distracted with counting out change for an elderly regular who had come in to buy her week’s supply of yarn and, when she looked up, suddenly there he was, smiling at her in that shy way he had that said he wasn’t quite sure if he was welcome.

He was welcome, Clarke thought.  He was  _ oh, so welcome _ .

“Hey,” she said, a little breathless, and she already felt heat climbing into her cheeks.

“Hey,” he said back, that smile ticking up a little bit more.  “How’s work?”

“You know, the usual.  How about you?”

“I actually got cut,” he admitted, scratching the back of his neck.  “But, uhm.”

“But what?” she asked when he trailed off.

“But I thought you might want to get lunch?”

Clarke’s cheeks were flaming now.  She looked away, just because she couldn’t look at him anymore without feeling like one of her internal organs were going to burst.

“I can, uh, I can go if you want.”

“No,” she said suddenly. “No, don’t do that.”  She dared to look back at him and he was smiling.  “Lunch sounds great.”

“Griffin!” her manager yelled from the back room and both Clarke and Bellamy jumped.  “Get in here, I need to talk to you.”

Clarke excused herself and threaded her way out from behind the counter and into the back room.  The safe door was cracked open and her manager was counting a thick stack of twenties.  She put down the last dollar and looked up at Clarke, eyes slightly narrowed.

“That boy is head over heels for you,” she said conversationally.

Clarke was silent.

“Be good to him.”

“I was planning on it.”

“Good.  Now go take your lunch break before he dies of embarrassment.”  She flipped the paper over and frowned at it.

Clarke grinned.  “Thank you.”

Bellamy was inspecting their display of watercolors when she emerged, clearly trying to look nonchalant and like he wasn’t waiting for her return.  The entire charade was ruined when she turned at the first sound of her footsteps.

“Lunch?” she asked him and he grinned.

“Lunch,” he agreed.

 

Clarke was distracted through dinner and her evening shower.  She was scrubbing shampoo through her hair or twirling a piece of spaghetti around her fork listening to her parents prattle on about their days at work but really she was sitting in a sticky food court chair, taking giant bites out of a burrito, making jokes that Bellamy was laughing at and teasing him about his choice of soda.

“Who even drinks cherry Coke, anymore?” she’d asked, grinning widely so he’d know she was joking.  “Is this 2006?”

He’d just given her a dazzling smile in return and replied with, “we all have our vices, princess.”  Then he’d reached across the table and smoothly stolen a forkful of her rice and guacamole, eyes daring her to do something.

She just shook her head and muttered, “amateur” under her breath before breezily stealing a handful of his fries.

That night as she lay in bed, staring up at the off-white color her mother had insisted on painting the ceiling (“I read in a magazine that it increases the resale value” she’d insisted when they were redoing Clarke’s room six years ago, “they did a study”) she decided that she’d had enough.

How did her peers do this?  How did they have crushes like this for weeks, months,  _ years _ , without going insane?  It had only been a matter of days and yet Clarke already felt ready to drive to Bellamy’s house and throw herself down on his lawn to declare her everlasting affections.

Well, maybe not.  Because this wasn’t a Jane Austen novel and Clarke’s name wasn’t Fitzwilliam Darcy.

But the idea stood.  Maybe not the desperate grand gestures.  That was probably the red blinking numbers on her alarm clock that spelled at 2:55 AM talking.  Clarke prided herself on being a perfectly logical member of society who didn’t make rash decisions.

But Bellamy Blake had always been the ruination of that.  From the beginning, Bellamy had inspired her to make dumb decisions and say dumb things and act impulsively.  How fitting that this was no different.

She rolled over and buried her face in her pillow and forcibly ejected any thoughts of dark curls, freckles, or smiling brown eyes from her mind.  There was a time and a place for that.  She’d deal with Bellamy and her feelings tomorrow.

 

Because Clarke was eternally logical, she texted Bellamy that morning when she got up.

_ Have today off _ , she wrote.   _ You? _

The response was nearly immediate, her phone chiming away on her bedside table as she brushed her hair.   _ Not until later _ , he’d said.   _ Four? _

_ You remember where I live right? _ she typed back.

_ Yes? _

_ Meet me at the park down the street at 4:30. _

_ See you there princess.   _ And then twenty seconds, a smiley face followed.  Clarke could just picture Bellamy staring at his phone screen, the blinking cursor taunting him as his finger hovered over the send key.

She smiled to herself and tucked her phone into her pocket.

At 4:20, Clarke was sitting on her favorite bench, the one in the shade of a trailing willow tree, a light breeze ruffling through her hair, tugging the shorter strands out of her loose braid.  She brushed them behind her ear and shifted on the bench, purposefully not looking toward the parking lot yet still listening for the telltale sounds of footsteps.

She looked up at 4:26 anyway and there he was, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his hoodie.

“How was work?” she asked him as he settled down on the bench next to her.

He turned, grinning, and there were pieces of hair reaching across his forehead that she ached to brush away.  “Fine, honey, how was your day?”

She choked.

“What?” he demanded, eyes wide in mock shock.  “I thought we were doing like this 50s housewife role play thing.”

“I was asking you a question!”

There was a bright joking light in his eyes that she thought she would never tire of.  “So sensitive today, Griffin.”

She looked away, fighting her smile, fist pressed to her lips.

He shifted closer.  Their thighs brushed on the bench.  A tremor wracked through Clarke.

“Did you have anything in particular in mind for our little rendezvous?” he asked after a long silence.  “Or did you just want to sit here on this bench and bask in the warmth of each other’s company?”

“Has anyone told you that you’re an asshole?”

“You,” he replied immediately.  “About seventy times.”

She laughed.

“Also my sister but I’m less inclined to believe her because I think she’s obligated.”

“Probably.”

He cracked a smile then nudged her shoulder with his.  Another tremor.

“Serious, though.  You looked pretty deep in thought when I walked up.”

“I have to tell you something,” she blurted, words too fast and too loud.

He froze.  “Okay.”  Cautious now.  She’d overstepped.

“I, um.”  She stopped.

His eyes were heavy and resolute on her face.  One of his hands, still trapped in the pocket of his hoodie twitched as if he wanted to reach out, maybe take her hand, comfort her.  She was glad he didn’t.

“I like you,” she managed and if the words came out a little bit choked that was okay.  Because judging from the shellshocked look on Bellamy’s face, he’d heard her just fine.

“Do you,” he asked finally, voice a little faint.

“As more than a friend,” she added, if only because they were the least embarrassing words beating themselves against the inside of her skull.

_ I think about you _ , she wanted to say.   _ Too much. And when I shouldn't. _

Instead, she stayed silent, watching emotions chase each other across Bellamy’s face.  Finally, he settled on a small smile.

“That’s good,” he said, and this time he did worm his hand out of his pocket, reaching up to trace a finger lightly down her cheek.  The pad of his finger rasped across her cheekbone and Clarke was forcing herself to breathe.  His eyes weren’t just one color, she realized now.  No, they were a kaleidoscope, different hues and shades and the ghosts of others crashing together in a changing mass.  They were mesmerizing.

“Yeah?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he whispered back.  “Because I like you a hell of a lot, Clarke Griffin.”  He stopped, bit his lip, face betraying a look that might have been shock.  “A hell of lot,” he repeated.

She smiled and turned a little bit into his touch, the pressure of his fingers stronger against the curve of her jawline.  “That’s good,” she parroted back to him, reaching out to brush that pesky piece of hair out of his face.

His grin was wide and beautiful and too much and Clarke could get lost in that smile.

“I want to do this right,” he said after a long pause. “Slow,” he added in answer to her confused look.  “No teenage pawing or hormone-fueled hookups behind the bleachers.”

She laughed and his smile widened.  “Okay.”

She leaned in to kiss him, desperate for the feeling of his lips against her skin again but he pulled back, using the hand still on her face to push her away.  Something dark and curling settled in her stomach.

“I haven’t even taken you out on a real date yet,” he protested.  “And here you are trying to take my virtue in a public park?”

She rolled her eyes.  “I refuse to believe you’ve never kissed someone before.”

His smile was back as were the dimples that haunted her waking and sleeping dreams.  “You would be correct.  But I’m calling on my 50s greaser training.”

She gave him a look.

“Octavia went through a  _ Grease  _ phase.”

“Didn’t we all?”

“Anyway,” he said, leaning in too close so his breath ghosted across his face.  She closed her eyes.  “I’m going to court you properly, Clarke Griffin.”

“Oh, so it’s courtship now?” she asked and she could hear his smile in his voice.

“You deserve nothing but the best.  And I’m going to give it to you,” he said softly.

_ But you already have _ , she wanted to say.   _ The lunches, this, the feeling of your hand on my skin, your breath against my neck, it’s enough _ .

But she didn’t.  Maybe because she couldn’t find the words but probably because he didn’t need to hear it.  He already knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come find me on [Tumblr!](http://andrevvminyard.tumblr.com)


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